Transcript

024 - The Cenci · Reviews

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Speaker 1: Section twenty three of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All libervox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Cory Samuel, Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by
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Speaker 1: Robert Ross, Section twenty three The chen Chee Dramatic Review,
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Speaker 1: May fifteenth, eighteen eighty six. The production of The chen
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Speaker 1: Chee last week at the Grand Theater, Islington may be
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Speaker 1: said to have been an era in the literary history
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Speaker 1: of this century, and the Shelley Society deserves the highest
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Speaker 1: praise and warmest thanks of all for having given us
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Speaker 1: an opportunity of seeing Shelley's play under the conditions he
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Speaker 1: himself desired for it. For The Chenchee was written absolutely
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Speaker 1: with a view to theatric presentation, and had Shelley's own
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Speaker 1: wishes been carried out, it would have been produced during
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Speaker 1: his lifetime at Covent Garden, with Edmund Keen and Miss
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Speaker 1: O'Neill in the principal parts. In working out his conception,
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Speaker 1: Shelley had studied very carefully the esthetics of dramatic art.
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Speaker 1: He saw that the essence of the drama is disinterested presentation,
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Speaker 1: and that the characters must not be merely mouthpieces for
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Speaker 1: splendid poetry, but must be living subjects for terror and
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Speaker 1: for pity. I have endeavored, he says, as nearly as possible,
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Speaker 1: to represent the characters as they probably were, and have
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Speaker 1: sought to avoid the error of making them actuated by
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Speaker 1: my own conception of right or wrong, false or true. Thus,
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Speaker 1: under a thin veil, converting names into actions of the
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Speaker 1: sixteenth century into cold impersonations of my own mind, I
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Speaker 1: have avoided with great care the introduction of what is
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Speaker 1: commonly called mere poetry, and I imagine there will scarcely
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Speaker 1: be found a detached simile or a single isolated description.
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Speaker 1: Un Less Beatrice's description of the chasm appointed for her
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Speaker 1: father's murder should be judged to be of that nature.
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Speaker 1: He recognized that a dramatist must be allowed far greater
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Speaker 1: freedom of expression than what is conceded to a poet
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Speaker 1: in a dramatic composition, to use his own words, the
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Speaker 1: imagery and the passion should interpenetrate one another, the former
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Speaker 1: being reserved simply for the full development and illustration of
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Speaker 1: the latter. Imagination is as the immortal God, which should
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Speaker 1: assume flesh for the redemption of mortal passion. It is
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Speaker 1: thus that the most remote and the most familiar imagery
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Speaker 1: may alike be fit for dramatic purposes, when employed in
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Speaker 1: the illustration of strong feeling, which raises what is low,
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Speaker 1: and levels to the apprehension that which is lofty, casting
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Speaker 1: over all the shadow of its own greatness. In other respects,
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Speaker 1: I have written more carelessly, that is, without an over
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Speaker 1: fastidious and learned choice words. In this respect I entirely
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Speaker 1: agree with those modern critics who assert that in order
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Speaker 1: to move men to true sympathy, we must use the
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Speaker 1: familiar language of men. He knew that if the dramatist
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Speaker 1: is to teach at all, it must be by example,
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Speaker 1: not by precept. The highest moral purpose, he remarks, aimed
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Speaker 1: at in the highest species of the drama, is the
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Speaker 1: teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the
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Speaker 1: knowledge of itself, in proportion to the possession of which knowledge,
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Speaker 1: every human being is wise, just, sincere, tolerant, and kind.
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Speaker 1: If dogmas can do more, it is well, But the
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Speaker 1: drama is no fit place for the enforcement of them.
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Speaker 1: He fully realizes that it is by a conflict between
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Speaker 1: our artistic sympathies and our moral judgment that the greatest
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Speaker 1: dramatic effects are produced. It is in the restless, an
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Speaker 1: anatomizing casuisty with which men seek the justification of Beatrice,
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Speaker 1: yet feel that she has done what needs justification. It
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Speaker 1: is in the superstitious horror with which they contemplate alike
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Speaker 1: her wrongs and their revenge, that the dramatic character of
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Speaker 1: what she did and suffers consists. In fact, no one
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Speaker 1: has more clearly understood than Shelley the mission of the
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Speaker 1: dramatist and the meaning of the drama. And yet I
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Speaker 1: hardly think that the production of the chen Che, its
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Speaker 1: absolute presentation on the stage, can be said to have
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Speaker 1: added anything to its beauty, its pathos, or even its realism.
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Speaker 1: Not that the principal actors were at all unworthy of
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Speaker 1: the work of art they interpreted. Mister Hermann Vezin's chen
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Speaker 1: Che was a noble and magnificent performance. Miss Alma Murray
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Speaker 1: stands now in the very first rank of our English
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Speaker 1: actresses as a mistress of power and pathos. Mister Leonard
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Speaker 1: Outram's Orsino was most subtle and artistic, but that the
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Speaker 1: Chenchi needs for the production of its perfect effect, no
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Speaker 1: interpretation at all. It is, as we read it, a
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Speaker 1: complete work of art, capable indeed of being acted, but
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Speaker 1: not dependent on theatric presentation, and the impression produced by
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Speaker 1: its exhibition on the stage seemed to me to be
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Speaker 1: merely one of pleasure at the gratification of an intellectual
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Speaker 1: curiosity of seeing how far Melpomenee could survive the wagon
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Speaker 1: of Thespis In producing the play, however, the members of
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Speaker 1: the Shelley Society were merely carrying out the poet's own wishes,
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Speaker 1: and they are to be congratulated on the success of
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Speaker 1: their experiment, a success not due to any gorgeous scenery
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Speaker 1: or splendid pageant, but to the excellence of the actors
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Speaker 1: who aided them. End of Section twenty three. The chen
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Speaker 1: Chi