PN 2049 .J6 Copy 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ®Hi ©iWrig^ :|d Slielf...J.(^._ ' UMTED STATES OF^^rica. ■i': :*l MII'>l'-% A Plain Talk About The Theater y\ RE^^ HERRICK JOHNSON^, D. D. /4 CHICAGO : F. H. REVELL, 148 and 150 Madison Street, Publisher of Evangelical Literature. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by F. H. REVELL, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. The demands of Christianity have been construed as an insult to intelligence. It has been sought to make the claims of Christian faith appear as an unwarranted encroachment upon the domain of reason. And multitudes have believed that the religion of Christ called for a blind credulity and a surrender of intel- lectual freedom. A sad and wicked perversion of Grod's truth, and a blasphemous assumption of author- ity and power, seeking its intensest expression in the dogma of papal infallibility, have undoubtedly done much to warrant this belief. Men, on peril of eccle- siastical censure, or under threat of anathema, or in the very agonies of inquisitorial torment, have been forced 4 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT TUK THEATER. to yield assent to that which their reason flatly con- tradicted and their better nature abhorred. Even in freer lands than those of Torquemada and the Pope, the tyranny and intolerance of bigotry have made them- seNes felt in matters of religious belief, so that design- ing and unscrupulous men, in the professed interest of free thought and mental independence, have made use of these perversions of the spirit of Chi'istianity, and have sought, by them, to represent the entire evan-, gelical chui'ch as opposed to free investigation, and in attitude of open hostility to the use of reason. So far. however, is this from being true that the very opposite is true. Christianity invites investigation — demands it. Ignorance and darkness, superstition and credulity are not conditions of its best growth. Where intelligence is fullest orbed, there are its worthiest achievements and most enduring fi'uits. When it lirst came, it appealed confidently to its credentials. The Bereans are on record as more noble than those of Thessalonica, because, while they received the word of the apostles with all readiness of mind, they searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so. We find Peter urging Christians to be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason PROVE ALL THINGS. » of the hope that is in them. And Paul is heard enjoining men to PEOVE ALL THINGS, and to hold fast that which is good. The evidences of the Christian faith, not only, but the doctrines and convictions and prevailing opinions of the Church, are thus open to the freest investigation. An eiTor may be advocated with vehemence, zeal and plausi- bility. It may marshal to its support an array of great names. It may wear the venerableness of antiq- uity. The mere fact that it has been upheld by good men, ordained by councils, accepted by the Church, and thus invested with a kind of sacred authority, does not necessarily make it true; does not exempt it from free inquiry and most searching examination. This is one of the glories of Chi'istianity. As against superstitions and false religions, seeking to bar out free discussion, and making their mysteries and mummeries too sacred for the scrutiny of common eyes, Chiistian- ity says, " Prove all things.'* Put everything, even Christianity itself, to the test. Synods and councils are not infallible. Accept no opinion at the disregard of reason, or the suicide of it. By whomsoever held, or by whatsoever authority indorsed, examine it, test b A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. its soundness, prove its metal. If it bear the test, if it be found genuine, if it be the truth, then embrace it and hold it fast. This is the dictate alike of reason and of conscience. This is Christianity's law. CHURCH OPPOSED TO THE THEATER. Now, it is well knuwn that the Church is opposed to the theater. Theatrical performance on the public stage is condemned by the great mass of those who believe in the morals of the New Testament. The play-house is regarded as inimical to the best interests and truest moral welfare of the community. This is my own settled conviction. I am firm in the persua- sion that the theater is hostile to public virtue, and, as an institution, pernicious and corrupting in its influence. I believe that to many a young man, and, alas! to not a few young women, these garnished and glittering establishments, with their sensuous attrac- tions, have been gateways leading down to moral ruin and death. There are several of these establishments nightly open in every large city. Their entertain- ments are everywhere thrust upon the public notice. Flaming hand-bills on every street announce the brill- iant attractions. Their advertisements head the amuse- TESTIMONY AGAINST THE THEATER. i ment columns of every daily paper, and almost every issue of the press has editorial notice of their varied perfoimances. Beyond a doubt, hundreds of young men are drawn every night of the week to enter these play-houses. Hence, the fitness of the present discus- sion. I have entitled it, "A Plain Talk About; the Theater.'' I wish to make it just that. It would be easily possible to declaim, in a denunciatory way, and to till the hour with a great zeal and vehemence of talk about the dreadfulness of the influence of dramatic performance. But I invite you, rather, to a test with me of the worth of the stage in the light of history, of reason, of Christian morals and of common sense. If it bear the test. well. In the spirit of apostolic injunction, then let us hold fast to it, and give it oui- countenance and active support. But, if it fail in the test — if it prove to be bad instead of good — inimical to virtue, and a school of immorality, then let us have nothing whatever to do with the unclean thing. TESTIMONY AGAINST THE THEATEK. This is no new question. You are doubtless aware that the Church, with remarkable unanimity, in suc- cessive generations and in different branches, has pro- 8 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. nounced against the stage. An English writer, in the time of Charles I, made " a catalogue of authorities against the stage, which contains almost every name of eminence in the heathen and Christian world. It com- prehends the united testimony of the Jewish and Chris- tian chui'ches; the deliberate acts of fifty- four ancient and modern general, national and provincial councils and synods, both of the Eastern and Western chui'ches ; the condemnatory sentence of seventy- one ancient fathers and 150 modern Catholic and Protestant writ- ers." Since that time the Christian Church has been just as clear and decisive in her convictions concerning the evils of the stage. Conferences, and assemblies, and synods, and associations, have alike, and succes- isively, and with one voice, pronounced against the theater. So has Plato, saying : " Plays raise the pas- sions and pervert the use of them, and of consequence are dangerous to morality." Aristotle and Tacitus, and Ovid, it is said, are on record to the same effect. Rousseau, resisting the intoduction of the stage into Geneva, calls it " a monument of luxury and eflfemi- nacy." Dr. eTohnson, speaking of Collier's " View of the Immorality of the English Stage," says: " The wise and pious caught the alarm, and the nation won- TESTIMONY AGAINST THE THEATER ^ dered that it had suffered irreligion and licentiousness to be taught openly at the public charge." Some of 3-0U may be surprised to know that the American Con- gi*ess. soon after the Declaration of Independence, passed the following: Whereas, True religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness ; ResoUed, That it be and is liereb}' earnestly recommended to the several States, to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof, and the suppression of theatrical entertainments, horse-racing, gaming and such other diver- sions as are productive of idleness, dissipation and a gen- eral depravity of principles and manners. Now, I admit that this mass of testimony, varied as it is from heathen and Christian sources, running tlii'ough the centuries, is not decisive of the case. No 1 ist of authorities and catalogue of great names can be absolutely conclusive. Error has been cherished for centuries on other points, and it is barely possible that the great and good of all ages, and these numerous assemblages of men, whose special office it is to look after and promote the moral welfare of the community, have been mistaken. But. surely, the testimony against the stage, pronounced so long and with such unan- imity, is entitled to consideration. It certainly raises 10 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE TIIEATEK. a doubt as to the moral effect of di^amatic entertain- ments. But, if, upon testing the matter and putting the theater to the proof, we find it to be a safe and healthful amusement, conducive to morality, and a school of instruction, then I grant that the long aiTay of adverse testimony amounts to nothing. The Chui'ch must acknowledge herself to have been mistaken, and, as a lover of morals, I must patronize and indorse what I have hitherto shunned and condemned. DEFENSE BY DAILY PRESS. It is to this that the ministry and the Chm-ch are occasionally summoned by articles in the daily press, and sometimes by writers more than ordinarily able, courteous and critical. With an evident desire to reform the more glaring abuses of the theater, and with manifest candor, they present views that chal- lenge consideration. Not long since, in a widely- circulated and most-respectable daily paper, I read one of these articles that opens thus: The stage is a serious affair. It is an institution. For good or for bad it must stand. It will live with civilization. It is a great popular pulpit. To the great mass of men and women it is, perhaps, the prominent social instructor. Theologians cannot destroy the st}«a:e, but their mad controversies with it DEFENSE BY DAILY PHESS. 11 have often buoyed up its pruriency. And this fact adroit purveyors very well understand. It is only necessary for a licentious and brazen playwright to put tilth on the boards, that critics and the pulpit shall denounce it into pecuniarj^ success. In this way the stage has reached that point of de"-- redation which Dr. Johnson deprecated and Byron deplored, and which Mr. Boucicault and the manager of Drury Lane have so latelj' avowed and indorsed in the columns of the London I'imes; yes, shamefully and defiantly indorsed ; their logic being that, as the standard drama will not draw, some- thing else must. And the mountebanks are not very particular what that "something else "shall be, provided always tj^at the public and the laws of the land will tolerate their disgrace- ful descent into the darkest ages of the drama, when the stage was a place for the orgies of satyrs, and its songs were the music of infernal sirens. Two leading faets are deducible from these premises : First— Religionists and moralists, who cannot destroyjhc stage, must go about to reform and sustain it with zeal and sense. These persons, to be dutiful, must admit what is true and denounce what is false about the drama, in a spirit of ser- ious, moderate, judicial criticism. ... As a public insti- tution the stage demands a cultivated and stern and liberal guardianship, and the fostering care of all whose posts are in the lines of education of any sort, whether religious or secular. I have quoted thus at length from this defender and advocate of the stage, to show yon the line of defense, to exhibit the extravagant claims, to point 12 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. out the specious logic, to note the damaging admis- sions, and to make answer to this demand upon us for an effort to reform and sustain with a " cultivated guardianship " and a " fostering care "' what religionists and moralists have hitherto denounced and sought to destroy. To the proof, then. Let us put this matter to the test. I speak- as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. LAME LOGIC. Let me notice, in the fh'st place, two or three steps in the logic of this defense. " The stage is an insti- tution,'" it is said. " For good or bad, it must stand. Theologians cannot destroy it. Therefore, they must go about to sustain it with zeal and sense." The pro- tracted existence of an institution, then, is a reason for our sustaining it, good or bad. It only becomes us to make the best of it. But because warfare against an evil for centuries has not succeeded in destroying it, must we, hence, change face and advocate it. Who shall say — who has a right to say — how long an experi- ment is needed to prove that any given institution will live while civilization lasts? Himian slavery is an institution far older than the theater. Keligionists and moralists have opposed it. for centui'ies, and now LAME LOGIf. 13 it is dying out, and has about passed away all over the earth. But suppose they had stopped their opposi- tion, according to this lame logic, and sought to reform its evils only. Millions to-day, now free, would have sighed in bondage and moved to the clank of chains. The house of the strange woman is an " institution." Long before ^schylus and Sophocles wrote the lirst Greek tragedies, Solomon warned against this institu- tion as " the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." It has existed ever since, and exists to- day. Shall we, therefore, say of it, " For good or bad it must stand. It will live with civilization. Theolo- gians cannot destroy it. That is proved. Hence, they must give it a stern guardianship and fostering care." No; this kind of logic would forever perpetuate tyranny and lust., and every persistent and giant wi'ong. We are to make no truce with evil. The only way to reform an evil is to destroy it. If the theater be a bad thing, whose essential tendencies are downward, and whose inevitable influence is demoral- izing, then its long life is no argument in its favor. Our ill- success in destroying it must not stop our effort. If it be an evil it will go by- and- by, or there is no truth in God's AYord. 14 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. DENOUNCING FILTH INTO SUCCESS. Here is another specimen of the logic of this defense of the staoje: '' Controversies with the stao^e have buoyed up its pruriency. It is only necessary for a licentious and brazen playwright to put filth on the boards, that the critics and the pulpits shall denounce it int-o pecuniary success.*' Note, in the first place, the damaging confession that filth is put on the boards, and is given pecuniary success — and this is what the wi'iter calls " the great popular pulpit,'* " the promi- nent social instructor.'* And the success comes because the pulpit and moralists denounce the filth! Was there ever lamer logic ! As if the l^est way to get rid of filth is to let it alone! As if to stop denouncing evil is to kill it! Or, as if the pulpit's condemnation of the shameless and corrupting license of brazen playwrights makes the pulpit responsible for the dis- gi'aceful exhibitions that fill the treasui'ies of our theaters! This is the very ai'gmnent. " In this way," the writer goes on to say, " in this way, the stage has reached that point of degi-adation which Johnson deprecated and Byron deplored." and that " dis- graceful descent into the darkest ages of the drama, when the stage was the place for the orgies of satyrs, LAME LOGIC. 15 and its songs were the music of infernal sii-ens." The present degi'adation and disgraceful descent of the drama is all owing to the opposition of the pulpit I Can intelligent men be deceived by such a glaring- sophism? Clear it of its sun-oundings. and the sim- ple statement is sufficient to show its absurd and wicked fallacy. Yet, in this way it is sought to parry the force of the damaging admissions advocates of the theater are obliged to make. And now let us look at these admissions. They are that the stage is now degraded: that this degradation is avowed and shamelessly indorsed by Boucicault, a popular writer of plays, and by the manager of Drury Lane Theater — -one of the best of London: that it is a degradation that had its counterpart when Johnson and Byron deprecated and deplored it; and when the stage was the place for the orgies of satyrs and when its songs were the music of infernal sirens. The stage has a histoiy, then: and that histoiy is dark with the record of repeated and disgraceful degradation. All this is the confession of the fi'iends of the theater — its constant patrons and defenders. 16 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. THE HISTORY OF THE STAGE. I am thus brought to consider the history of the stage — the rise and coui'se of dramatic performances. Surely, fi'om this we may gather some knowledge of its prevailing characteristics and some estimate of its value as a means of moral refoiin or rational amuse- ment. This historical review must necessarily be the briefest; and, through it all, let us carry the distinc- tion between the drama and the stage. The di'ama is a department of literatui'e and valuable as such. Shakespeare and the great masters of Grecian tragedy, no scholar would care to dispense with. " No ques- tion could be more easily decided," says Foster. " than whether it be lawful to write and to read useful and ingenious things in a dramatic form: but it is an altogether different question whether the stage is a useful means of entertainment and moral instruction. So different a question is it, that the stage may be as injurious as the drama is beneficial. A young man may wisely and consistently value the drama, reading- it and studying it with discriminating criticism, imd yet wisely and righteously denounce the theater. There are the excitement of scenic effects, the evil associations, the overwhelming appeals to the sense, the gloss put HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 17 upon impurities, and very much else, making up the dif- ference. The study of anatomical plates for scientific purposes is quite another thing from the exhibition of those plates to a mixed assembly, some of whom may find in them a stimulus to the basest passions." No man of delicacy would even read the entire plays of Shakespeare in his own family. Then, agaiu% the attempt to realize on the boards what has been con- ceived and written, often degrades the very scenes and events represented. Even a Michael Angelo could not successfully paint the judgment scene, though the Bible describes it. Nor can we suppose that Biblical drama, in eight acts, called " The Eedeemer of the AVorld, or the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ," recently sought to be put upon the boards, with all scenic attractions, in one of the theaters of New York, would have had any other effect than to degrade the Scriptural representation. Thanks to the indignant protests of a Christian public, that effort failed. Keeping in view, therefore, the distinction between the drama, as a department of literature, and the stage, as a place of theatrical performance, let us briefly look at the history of the theater. Dramatic representation had its origin among the 18 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. Greeks, with a troop of bacchanalians, in rude and boisterous songs, interspersed with dances, conducted with a high degree of licentiousness, both in language and action. Then came Thespis, introducing tragedy. The stage is said to have been a cart, the chorus a troop of itinerant singers, and the actor a sort of mimic. Subsequently, iEschylus appeared, " who carried the Greek di'ama at once to nearly its highest perfection." He was followed by Sophocles, called the ancient Shakespeare, who introduced a third and even a fourth actor into his plays. Then came decline under Em'ip- ides, exhibiting degenerated taste and loose morality. The transition to comedy was easy, originating in the licentious sports of the villages, and popular in pro- portion as it was personal, abusive and low. The comedies of Aristophanes are an illustration at once of the " depravity of the poet and the libertinism of the spectators.-' His wit was coarse and vile — a mixture of birffoonery and positive filth. Theatrical exhibitions became a popular amusement among the Romans, just as they lost their stern love of virtue, yielded to lux- ury and grew weak and effeminate. The best author- ity states that the law of deterioration in dramatic representations has been illustrated among the Hin- HISTOTY OF THE STAGE. 19 doos, even as among the Greeks. Connected, in their origin, with religious observances, they have invariably degenerated. The European stage is no exception. This grew out of " The Mysteries " of the middle ages, a sort of sacred drama performed by monks, in which the devil always played a conspicuous part. Of these, Hannah More says: " Events too solemn for exhibition and too awful for detail were brought before the audience with a formal gravity more offensive than levity itself." " Celestial intelligences, uttering the sentiments and language, and blending with the buf- fooneries of Bartholomew Fair, were regarded as appropriate subjects of merry-making for a holiday audience." This was the foundation of the modern British and American stage, which has risen only to degenerate; until now many of its exhibitions outrival in licentiousness and filth the darkest days of the drama, even on the confession of its friends. In China, theatrical entertainments are greatly pop- ular. But neither there nor in Japan are women allowed to perform. It is a disputed question whether women were ever even present in the ancient theater. It is undeniable that the actors were invariably men, and few in number, and vet these theatrical entertain- 20 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. inents contributed to the downfall of the Grecian state. They had their origin in a corrupt state of morals, and they tended to deterioration. As it has been, so it is now, and shall be. Our early Congi'ess, in the sterling virtue of those days of the Republic, took action against the theater; but who imagines that in this time of widespread coiTuption and venality and licentiousness and crime, that Congi-ess could be led seriously to consider such a resolution ? History is all one way in testifying to the worthlessness of the stage, as a school of virtue or a means of rational and elevating amusement. The clear verdict of the ])ast is that the theater is an institution, ^Uchich ha^^ WITHIN ITSELF THE SEEDS OF CORRUPTION, and which exists only under a laic of degeneracy/'' Respectable men have again and again gotten ashamed of its accumulating evils and more and more unblush- ing indecencies, and, from time to time in its history, announcements have been made of establishments opened as tit temples of the drama, with the expectation and purpose of maintaining a high intellectual and moral character. I tell you the simple truth when I say that, however sincere such efforts have been, thev have REFOUM IMPOSSIBLE. 21 invariably failed. Such is the nature of theatrical representation, and such is human nature, that deteri- oration is inevitable. The moral and religious por- tion of the community, except in a time of spiritual decline and degeneracy, cannot be generally persuaded to support the theater. Make it fit for them, and the majority of its present patrons would vacate it and seek the desired excitement elsewhere. Plays, to be popular, must be a representation of active passions. " Silence, patience, moderation, temperance, wisdom and contrition for guilt," it has been well said, " are no virtues, the exhibition of which will divert specta- tors." REFOKM IMPOSSIBLE. The stage, therefore, can never be made " a mirror of Christian sentiments and morals." Garrick, in the experiment, met with utter failure. This cry of re- form and this effort at reformation is no new thing. It has been tried over and over again. The centuries have heard of it. Under Cromwell and the Common- wealth — in those stern but pure times — (times for a long while railed at and lampooned as bigoted and boorish, but now deemed the glory of England) — in those stern but pure times, the theaters were deemed so '>:2 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. corrupting that they were closed. With the disso- luteness of morals that followed the Restoration, they were soon in full activity. Read Macaulay, if you want a picture of that era. " Tragic passion" gave way to " cold-blooded bombast," and, for " comic wit and fancy," was substituted " coarse licentiousness " — " an obscenity," says a recent literary critic, " so foul, so diseased, that it seems inconceivable that men could ever have borne to write, to listen to or to see such things." It was the age of such play- writers as Wycherley and Congreve. Macaulay says of Wych- erley: "The only thing he could furnish from his own mind in inexhaustible abundance was profligacy." Congreve was " the champion of the most shocking descriptions of vice." Leigh Hunt calls the superior fine ladies and gentlemen of Congi'eve's plays, " a pack of sensual busy-bodies like insects over a pool." Do you say these plays must have been condemned for the licentiousness of their genteel vulgarity? Not so. Gilded vice had its defenders then as now. Hardly another English author has been so praised by the men of his time as William Congreve. Dryden, the most dis- tinguished literary man of that day, ranked him with Shakespeare! And Pope dedicated to- him his Hiad ! REFORM EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA. 23 It is no wonder that the English nation ere long- woke again to the immorality of the stage and won- dered that it had suffered irreligion and licentiousness to be taught openly at the public expense. Later, a committee of the British Parliament, after a full investigation of the subject, reported that the only way to reform the theater was to burn it down. And now, Mr. Boucicault and the manager of Drury Lane, London, avow and indorse the present degradation, and shamelessly declare their pui'pose to cater to it and perpetuate it by " Black Crooks,'' " Formosas " and the like. REFOBM EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA. AVhat is the history of such reform movement in America? When the charms of a new and gorgeous edifice have worn away, and the novelty is gone, the first-rate house degenerates into a second and third rate, less and less care is had to please the aesthetic few, and finally the low. level of all the other boards is ]-eached, and the degraded popular appetite is fed with what is an offense to morals and an insult to intelligence. The standard drama is only now and then thrust in, to keep up a show of respectability and to secure the countenance and support of those who 24 •LAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. ai'e disgusted with spectacular nonsense aiid impuri- ties. This is the course of the theaters in our chief cities. It has been so in Philadelphia, to my certain knowledge. There each of the principal theaters originated in a throe of reform. The determination of the management to present only the higher class of plays in an artistic and wholly unexceptional manner, was published far and wide. But in every case, each theater that began with the pui'pose of utmost respec tability, in the use of the standard drama, soon catered to the degraded popular taste, with the cheap sensa- tional and the vile burlesque of the blondes. In New York, the same record has been made. Booth's Theater, that brilliantly garnished establish- ment, that was to be sternly held to the chaste and splendid exhibitions of histrionic art. has again and again had filth upon its boards. It was not long ago that I read in one of the best of the New^ York dailies, that Wallack's Theater the night before was the scene of " one of those pleasant festivals of thought and feel- ing, which, in their intermittent occiu'rence, keep it in jniblic affection and respect as the favorite theater of the land." "The audience was remarkable for its rf'iined and tasteful aspect and intelligence." " Such KEFORM EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA. 25 occasions,*' the writer goes on to say, " serve to refresh in the thoughtful public taste our interest in the affairs of the drama, which a cotemporary stage, overloaded with frippery and filth, and often grossly mismanaged by licentious and mercenary hucksters, has done very much to diminish or destroy." Now, what is this exceptional play, that, according to this writer, has fui'nished an intermittent festival of thought and feeling, and drawn together an audi- ence remarkable for its refinement, and is in such con- trast to the frippery and filth of a cotemporaneous stage? Why, this very writer describes it as an intri- cate web of intrigue, where two women love the same man; where a husband incriminates his wife, whom he has just led from the altar, and where there is" an appeal for sympathy with handsome feminine wicked- ness,*' together " with occasional equivoke," or double meaning. And when it comes to pass that in the favorite theater in the land, on an exceptional occa- sion of thought and feeling, at an intermittent spasm of protest against fi-ippery and filth, this is the kind of exhibition that is made upon the boards, I ask what kind of a place has it gotten to be for any respectable young man or woman? If this be done in the green 26 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. tree, what may we expect in the dry? If this is the best to be gotten in the favorite play-house of the great metropolis, what must we expect and what do we get from like establishments elsewhere? HENEY IRVING. I am not ignorant of the experiment now being made in London. I know that Henry Irving, with all the instincts and convictions of a gentleman, and with grace and power of acting, perhaps, unrivaled to-day in the dramatic world, is undertaking to have a theater of unexceptionable morals. But I know, too, that it re(][uires all the histrionic ability and painstaking toil and expenditure and peerless gifts of his genius, to make that experiment even a temporary success; and that with his decadence his clean place will gi'ow foul, as inevitably as water will find its level. This con- summate actor recently gave an address before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, Scotland, on " The Stage as It Is," in which he said: " The stage is intellectually and morally, to all who have recourse to it, the source of some of the finest and best influences of which they are respectively sus- ceptible." And in saying this he expressly declared HENHY IRVING. " 27 that he was ^' speaking not of any lofty imagination of what might be, but of what is, wherever there are pit, gallery and foot-lights." I face this statement with the facts of history. I appeal to the record of every one of these glittering and garnished establishments. I hold up in contradiction the efforts at reform that have so often been made and as often abandoned. I call to the witness-stand the director of the city prison in Paris, M. Bequerel, who says : " If a new play of a vicious character has been put upon the boards, I very soon find it out by the number of young fellows who come into my custody." I summon the New York Evening Post to testify — a paper conducted by no prudes or Puritans. In a recent editorial on " Om* Stage as It Is," it says: There has probably been a greater mass of meretricious rubbish set on the New York stage during the last ten years than during the whole of its existence. We do not, of course, refer solel}^ to pieces that appeal to the baser instincts, but to the whole body of sensational or emotional products — to the feverish slop of a French melodrama, etc. Now all this proves beyond all doubt that the refor- mation of the fheater is out of the question — that the ideal stage is simply an impossibility ! I say it again, 28 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. fearless of sustainable contradiction, and supported by the record of the past and present, by the very nature of theatrical representations, and by the neces sities of the case, that the stage, as an institution, "^ hcts within itself the seeds of corruption, and it exists only under a law of degeneracy.'' EFFECT ON ACTORS. How can it be otherwise? Take the actore them- selves. How can they mingle together, as they do, men and women, and make public exhibition of them- selves as they do. in such circiunstances, with such siu'- roundings, with such speech as must often be on their lips to play the plays that are written, in such posi- tions as they must sometimes take, affecting such sen- timents and passions — how can they do this without moral contamination? That it is done, as an excep- tion, does not disprove the law of degeneracy. A Gar- rick and a Mi's. Siddons and some others of equal or approximate fame, and some others of far less reputa- tion, may sustain on the stage a moral character above reproach: but who can deny that the tendency of all theatrical engagement is strongly and sadly, and, alas! generally successfully the other way. Now. if the thea- EFFECT ON AUDIENCE. 29 ter be a school of morals, how does it happen that the teachers so seldom learn their own lessons ! How does it happen that these teachers so seldom take part in any moral enterprises when their stage di'esses are off? How many young men of clean, piu'e homes would cai'e to have their sisters tread the boards ! The point I make, is. that if to the actors themselves theatrical rep- resentation is injurious, tending strongly and almost in- evitably to immorality and corruption, placing them where we would be ashamed to have a brother or sis- ter, son or daughter, placed, and giving them a social ostracism, which only transcendant genius, like Booth's, or Kemble's, or Irving's, can overcome, then the insti- tution demanding that state of things, and making- necessary that moral exposure and social banishment, is inherently and essentially bad, and neither you nor I have a right, nor has any one else a right, to support it or countenance it. EFFECT ON AUDIENCE. But the evil does not stop with the actors. It extends to the audieace. What cannot be done with- out a tendency to moral harm, cannot be seen without a tendency to moral harm. Corrupt tastes are formed 30 A PLAIN TALK ABOTT TIIK THEATER. at the theater — false views of life ai-e inculcated, false standards of honor. The plain and sober and ordinary duties of life are not brought out at the play-house. Love is commonly represented as a romantic passion. Religion in its purity is too tame for the demanded excitements of the stage. What better can I say on this point than what ]Mi*s. More has said: It is generally the leading object of the poet to erect a standard of honor in direct opposition to the standard of Christianity : and this is not done subordinately, incidentally, occasionally, Imt worldly honor is the very soul and spirit and life-giving principle of the drama. Honor is the religion of tragedy. It is her moral and political law. Her dictates form its institutes. Fear and shame are the capital crimes in her code. Against these all the eloquence of her most powerful pleaders, against these her penal statutes — pistol, sword and poison — are in full force. Injured honor can only be vindi- cated at the point of the sword ; the stains of injured repu- tation can only be washed out in -blood. Love, jealousy, ambition, pride, revenge, are too often elevated into the rank of splendid virtues and fonn a dazzling system of worldly morality in direct contradiction to the spirit of that religion whose characteristics are charity, meekness, peaceableness, long-suffering, geiUleness and forgiveness. There is no quashing that indictment. And hence it is that even loose -and abandoned men. who abhor POSITIVE I^rMOHALITY 31 the religion anfl morality of the Chm*ch, take delight in and applaud to the echo the morality on the boards of the theater. I bring to the witness-stand the writer who edits the " stage " department of the Philadelphia Daily Press. He says: The gallery, though not always patronized bj- the most moral of om- citizens, invariably is thronged when the moral drama is produced, and the gentle youth who would pick your pocket without the slightest qualm of conscience, wildly applauds when virtue is triumphant over vice, and the heavj- villain meets with the just reward of his crimes. I need not ask you whether the morality getting that kind of indorsement is the morality commended of heaven; or, whether the morality thus presented and thus approved would be likely to elevate the character of those who witnessed it. and the general tone of society. You all know better. POSITIVE IMMORALITY. There ai'e other objections to the theater — important, and deserving notice; but I pass, to speak briefly and finally of this — the positive immorality of the stage — the openly, and, sometimes, grossly pernicious exhibi- tions which make it a teacher of vice. How few plays are acted which have not some form of immoralitv in 32 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATKl!. them, and that are utterly free from impmity — that have not the oath, or the double-meaning, or the covert suggestion, or the lascivious gesture, insinuat- ing often what is not actually expressed. There is one whole class of dramas called " seventh command- ment plays," for the obvious reason that they deal in crimes forbidden by that Jaw. Macready, one of the celebrated English tragedians, would not permit his daughtei's to attend the theater. His judgment and affection as a father were in conflict with his tastes and interests as an actor. H!is habits, love of fame and desire of gain, bound him to the stage; but a regard to the welfare of his daughters prompted him to guard them against it. There is scarcely an evil incident to human life which may not be learned at the theater. If this be not so, how comes it about that we must have an expiu'gated edition of even the prince of dramatists, in order that his entire plays may be read aloud in a social circle composed of the two sexes ? If this be not so, what of the vast mass of plays put upon the boards of even our best theaters, some of which, in the very language of an enthusiastic defender of the drama, are " a murderous assault upon all that the familv-circle holds most holv and sacred?" POSITIVE IMMORALITY. 33 If this be not so, why is it that some of the worst classes in the community are the constant patrons of the theater! If a man is known by the company he keeps, is not an institution known by the audience it draws? And, granting that there are respectable men and women in that audience, come to witness some admirable rendering of character, or to listen to some choice or elevating music, that is not the entertainment nightly drawing the crowd. There must be something answering to and gratifying the tastes of the depraved and dissolute and the immoral, to bring them so con- stantly to the play-house. And there is. Such char- acters are not seen regularly, and in any numbers, at the church, at the concert, at the lecture, at any place of rational amusement; but yon will always find them at the theater. The patrons of the grog-shop are the patrons of the theater. The patrons of the house of the strange woman are the patrons of the theater. The patrons of the gambling-hells are the patrons of the theater. And they go there because they find what they want there ; because their depraved appetites are whetted there. It matters not that others go, of different and far better standing. Those go because their tastes are met and catered to, managers conduct- 34 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. ing their theaters as other people conduct their busi- ness, with a view of making money. If the theater were a school of morals, they would not go. If it were a popular pulpit and a virtuous social in- structor, they would not go. If it were a place of entirely innocent amusement, they would not go. They give wide berth to such things. In Paris, in the bloody days of the Eevolution, how was it? " "WTiile courts of justice were thrust out by Jacobin tribunals, and silent churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion, there were, in Paris, no fewer than twenty- eight theaters, great and small, most of them kept open at the public expense, and all of them crowded eveiy night." NATURAL AFFILIATIONS. See, too, how the saloon and the grog-shop natm'- ally and invariably drop down at the doors of the play-houses. Is there no connection between them? Ah! my dear reader, sharing with me in the duties and destinies of life, is a warning necessary after all this? Need I bid you, in the name of morality and religion, and, as you value character and manhood, let the thea- ter utterly alone. But I hear it said, " God has NATURAL AFFILIATIONS. 35 planted in my nature a taste for dramatic representa- tion, and it can be gratified at the theater; and I may go there when the higher plays are rendered by true talent, with great dramatic power, and be gratified and do no harm." That is possible; but is it all? "Julius Caesar " and Tennyson's " Queen Mary," Jefferson's " Eip Van Winkle," " Hamlet," "Macbeth "—in hear- ing these are you not doing far more than gratifying a proper dramatic taste? Are you not putting your- self where appeals may be made, and doubtless will be made, to your lower, as well as to your higher nature? The very after-piece put on the boards in the wake of the sublime tragedy you have gone to wit- ness may be a gross travesty of our holy religion; an indecent and insulting caricature of something pure and sacred. And the most of what is exhibited on that stage, month in and out, has in it that which tends to degrade and demoralize. Quips and jests and exposures are allowed and applauded there that would be deemed insulting in our homes. And you are the open and inevitable, though it may be indirect, patron of all this. For your money supports the insti- tution — it goes to swell the receipts of the house where these things are enacted night after night. And 36 A PLAIX TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. though, on the particular night when you go, nothing may appear to offend the strictest sense of propriety, yet, I ask you, if you have any right to gratify youi- taste at the expense of making yourself directly and knowingly a countenancer and patron of an institution whose common and most characteristic features are offensive to purity, to religion and to God? TAINTED AND VICIOUS. There the house stands, and it is largely given up to the wretched sensational plays, tricked up in the tinsel of cheap art. There vile burlesque and idealess buffoonery may be witnessed. Night by night scenes are enacted there of the grossest indecency and im- purity, suggestive of all uncleanness. You know, as well as I, the dreadful influence of all that. You know, as well as I, that every theater in this city is more or less given up to plays whose atmosphere is tainted and vicious. As one of the better class of these plays, take "Adrienne LeCouvreur," as rendered by Bernhardt. It is a play to which no modest man should take a modest woman. One who has examined it, says : " It is immoral by its intrigue, immoral by the maxims uttered by the actors, and immoral by the compromis- GILDING VICE. 37 ing situations in which the principal personages find themselves at different stages of the piece." One of the theatrical press writers of Chicago, said of it: " The plot abounds in surprises and intrigues so thor- oughly Parisian that it is quite as well the words were in an unfamiliar tongue. The atmosphere of the play is fetid and unwholesome." If it be said that only a woman like Bernhardt, who is reported to be what social decency does not name, would take the part, let it be remembered that Modjeska has played it on the Chicago boards, and that Eachel, " the inimitable Rachel," made it historic by her gifted personation of its leading part. GILDING VICE. Here, then, is an institution — the stage, the theater — that is gilding vice; an institution that is making young men and women familiar with adulterous liai- sons, and at home with almost absolute nudity; an institution, that, since the advent of the " Black Crook," — which I very well remember was met with a kind of shock and general protest— has gone on and on, until now the bulletin-boards on our public streets flaunt the shameless exposure in the very faces of every passer-by, and the tiling is taken as a matter of course, 38 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. and not a voice is heard in remonstrance; an institu- tion that is frequently exhibiting " seventh comaiand- ment plays," for the delectation and incitement of our young men and women; an institution, that, in the very language of its defenders, is guilty of " a mur- derous assault upon all that the family circle holds most holy and sacred." But one day in the week, or one week in the month, or one month in the year — no matter as to exactness — all this is changed. The house is put in order, and, under the same management, with almost the same actors, in the same place, a play is brought forward divested of every trace of impurity, and without a hint or suggestion to which a respecta- ble man or woman coald take exception. What of it? Does not every instinct of our better nature and every voice of reason say: It is wrong to darken the door of an institution, three-fourths or nine-tenths of whose influence is pernicious and poisonous? What if the manager of one of these low concert saloons should build a splendid music hall, and gild it with every possible attraction, and behind it put a gilded brothel; and what if the exquisite melody and rhythmical flow and very thrill and passion of music and song were to be had in that hall every night GILDING YICE. 39 accompanied with those incidents and incitements adapted and designed to lure to the brothel behind it; and what, if one night in the week, or one week in the month, or one month in the year — no matter as to exactness — all this should be changed; and, under the same management, with the same orchestra and same chorus, with almost the same singers throughout, and in the same place, a concert should be given, exquisite and refined in its nature, suggestive of nothing evil, and as wholesome and inspiring in its effects as the sublime strains of " The Messiah? " What of it? Would you be found there? Well, now, I do not say, for I do not believe, that there is a brothel behind the theater; but I do say, fearless of successful challenge, there are sometimes, and often, scenes and situations and exposures and sugg-estions on every stage in this city, and on every stage in this land, tending and adapted to make pa- trons for and victims of the house of the strange wo- man. And the one dollar or three dollars given at the box office is just so much toward sustaining the estab- lishment where these things are allowed and encour- aged. 40 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. FINAL APPEAL. Christians ! Christians ! remember this, I beg of you — you who have been baptized with prayer, and who profess to think something of the decencies of home and the purities of religion and the sanctities of a Christian profession — remember this when you are tempted to cross the threshold of a theater to see some splendid play — ^that your presence there is coun- tenancing and helping to support a place, an agency, an institution, that openly dishonors God by much that it gives to the public; that as openly caricatures the religion of your Lord; that, in this city, at least, openly tramples on His Sabbath with loud revelry and insolent scoff; and that suggests, if it does not exhibit, more or less that is morally leprous and impure. " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." Surely the theater does not bear this apostolic test. As an amusement, it is too unwarr antab ly expensive, if there were absolutely nothing else against it. The receipts of the New York theaters are greater than the expenses of the churches, of the schools and of the police, combined. And when just one kind of amuse- meut for a city costs more than to police it and educate it and teach it religion, it is a wicked and shameful FINAL APPEAL. 41 extravagance. But the expense of the stage is the least objection to it. It is a disseminator of evil. It has a false code of morals and a false standard of honor. It arouses sensibilities of a high sort only to dull and deaden them. It arouses sensibilities of a low sort only to have them clamorous for evil gratification. It has been to hundreds upon hundreds the outer circle of a maelstrom, sucking in and down to perdition. Its history proves that a radical reformation is impossible. It is hopelessly bad. Yogiing men, and young women, too, and readers all, I urge you, as one who speaks not without reasons, as one for whom the dramatic in action and speech hr.s a peculiar fascination, and as one who has felt the charm and witchery of it in actual experience, yet who is principled against indulgence at the price of mo rality and a pure manhood and womanhood — I urge you, in the interests of pure, sweet lives, in the inter- ests of sacred homes, in behalf of the Sabbath and of the Name that is above every name, shun the theater! " Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."" A Plainer Talk About the Theater. My " plain talk about the theater " has not been relished in certain quarters. Of course not. Smite any iniquity and it will hiss and spring and sting if it can. I purpose now, if possible, a plainer talk. There is crying need. of it. "A theatrical review" in the Inter Ocean, December 31, furnishes the occasion. It gives a list of the performances in the foui* leading- theaters of Chicago the last year. Let any one go down that list of a column and a half with any knowl- edge of the character of the plays and the players, and he will find it mainly a record of trash, vulgarity, and filth that more than justifies the severest things said in "A Plain Talk About the Theater," and that should make every thinking man and woman in this 44 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. city tremble at the effect upon public morals of these vapid, prurient, and often vicious exhibitions. At McVicker's the year was opened (January 4) with two weeks of Bernhardt in "Adrienne Lecou- ^n'eur," " Frou-Frou," etc., and closed (December 24) with two weeks of Raymond in "Fresh." Of " Adrienne Lecouvreur," a theatrical press writer said : '• The plot abounds in surprises and intrigues so thor- oughly Parisian it is quite as well the words were in an unknown tongue. The atmosphere of the play i& FETID AND UNWHOLESOME.'^ Of '• Fresh," a press writer said : " It is unmiti- gated and unmitigable bosh from beginning to end. It is crammed full of the slang of the period^ gathered from the street, the saloon, the race- course — everything in fact. Some of the ladies' cos- tumes are rich and handsome, but rather short- waisted at the top." When such exhibitions begin and end the year, is it at all likely that the intervening months will be crowded with high moralities ? When a book opens with pages of "immoral intrigue" and "im- moral maxims" and " compromising situations," and closes with pages of "bosh" and "slang" and im- NOT A PALPABLE FALSEHOOD. 45 modest exposure, who will believe that the balance of it is an inspiration to everything that is sweet and pure and noble? And McVicker's Theater is first-class. Ex uno •disce omnes! Let me be more definite. I have gone over the plays of the four leading theaters for the three months of September, October and November, 1881, taking these months simply because they immediately pre- ceded the "plain talk." At Hooley's, thirteen even- ings were given to the so-called standard drama (Keene) and seventy-six evenings to trash. At Mc- Yicker's, twelve evenings were given to Miss Anderson, six to Joe Jefferson, twelve to Denman Thompson, and forty-eight to trash. At Haverly's, eighteen evenings to the standard drama (McCullough) and fifty-one to trash. At the Grand Opera, all the seventy-nine evenings to trash, unless " Patience " or the " Pirates of Penzance" may be otherwise regarded. NOT A PALPABLE FALSEHOOD. It won't do to call this another specimen of " pal- pable falsehood" or "deplorable ignorance" on the part of the pulpit, and writ'ten either by " a knave " 46 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE TT3EATEB. or a " fool." Out of their own mouths shall they be condemned. A theatrical press writer in the Times said late in November last : " With an occasional exception, Chicago has been regaled all the season thus far with the thinnest sort of theatrical diet ;" "once in a long time an exception to this dull vacuity- appears ; " " but, nevertheless, trash of the most un- adulterated description has largely taken possession of the stage." I wish it were no worse. But to call the stuff thus put on the Chicago theater boards " trash" is not to tell half the truth. Trash may be clean, though vapid and shallow. It may be an insult to intelligence and an offense to taste, but not an affront to morals. But this trash of the theaters is all three. Very much of it is vile and vicious, appealing to what is base in human nature, and foul in its origin, exhibition and inspiration. Let me again make good my words by appealing to the record. The comments are from the leading daily press. At Haverly's: "Twelfth Night" — given twelve nights; Shakespeare "emasculated;" "a drunken knight and a foolish simpleton heroes of the play." "Patience," twelve nights; as given at Booth's, one FASCINATING, DEMORALIZING, LEGGY. 4T of the chief aesthetic maidens again and again guilty o£ " OUTRAGEOUS INDELICACY," and the wonder expressed "why the manager of a respectable theater permits such an indecorous, dis- gusting exhibition." " Strategists," six nights — " a gigantic farce," based on these propositions: "It's a wise child that knows its own father; it's a stupid wife that doesn't know her own husband." " Michael Strogoff," twelve nights — " Feminines in scantiness of apparel were neither more nor less shapely than usual." At the Opera House: " Daniel Rochat," given three nights, characterized as " vile." " Felicia," eight nights — mother reveals her life of shame to a bastard son. " Mother and Son," six nights — " coarse and vulgar Madame Coterel." " French Flats," seven nights — " adaptation of an original play as nasty and unpleasant as it was possible for a French dramatist to put upon the boards." "Olivette," eight nights — " FASCINATING, DEMORALIZING, LEGGY," as rendered by Miss Lewis, noted chiefly for " The Lewis Fling," or "Katharine's Kick," which has "given her a national reputation." "Madame Fa- 48 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. vart," seven nights — " the questionable, or, rather, un- questionable, salaciousness of Madame Favart." " A good deal of decidedly suggestive dialogue." " To say nothing of the more or less shapely figures of a large number of young ladies;" "considerable economy in the use of toilet material ; " " the uncalled-for dis- play of feminine figui'es which runs through the whole evening, and in some junctures trembles along the verge of the positively shocking." At McVicker's: " All the Rage," twelve nights— "humor strained;" "wit coarse;" " ground- work flimsy," "introduction of cheap slang." "The World," twelve nights — " after the stock model of the spectacular;" stripped of "accessories of the carpen- ter, tailor and milliner, it would not live a week." " Member for Slocum," six nights—" compromising situations; " " a sport decidedly blas6; " said to be an almost literal translation of a French farce And these '. (Mrs. R. Pearsall Smith), author of Record of a Happy Life. i2mo., cloth, neat $1 00 Paper Covers ^ 50 Glad Tidings ; a book for inquirers. By Robert Boyd, D. D., with Preface by D. L. Moody, 12 mo., 100 pp. Cloth, neat, 50c. A cheap edition in paper for circulation, 25c. This book has been used largely in connection with the great revival meetings, both in Great Britain and this land. Mr. Moody has used it largely in his work, giving away many thousand copies. My Inquiry Meeting; or. Plain Truths for Anxious Souls. By Robert Boyd, D. D., Author of "Glad Tidings," « 'Young Con- verts," &c., 64 pp. 15c.; cloth, 25c. 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