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025 - Helena in Troas · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty four of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Karen Savage. Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Robert Ross. Section twenty four Helena Intoas Dramatic Review, May
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  Speaker 1: twenty second, eighteen eighty. One might have thought that to
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  Speaker 1: have produced as You Like It in an English forest
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  Speaker 1: would have satisfied the most ambitious spirit. But mister Godwin
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  Speaker 1: has not contented himself with his Sylvan triumphs from Shakespeare.
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  Speaker 1: He has passed to Sophocles, and has given us the
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  Speaker 1: most perfect exhibition of a Greek dramatic performance that has
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  Speaker 1: as yet been seen in this country. For beautiful, as
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  Speaker 1: were the productions of Agamemnon at Oxford and the Humilities
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  Speaker 1: at Cambridge, their effects were marred in no small or
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  Speaker 1: unimportant degree by the want of a proper orchestra for
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  Speaker 1: the chorus with its dance and song, a want that
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  Speaker 1: was fully aplied in mister Godwin's presentation by the use
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  Speaker 1: of the arena of a circus in the center of
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  Speaker 1: this circle, which was paved with the semblance of tessellated marble,
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  Speaker 1: stood the altar of Dionysius, and beyond it rose the long,
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  Speaker 1: shallow stage, faced with casts from the Temple of Basset,
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  Speaker 1: and bearing the huge portal of the House of Paris
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  Speaker 1: and the gleaming battlements of Troy. Over the portal hung
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  Speaker 1: a great curtain painted with crimson lions, which, when drawn aside,
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  Speaker 1: disclosed two massive gates of bronze. In front of the
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  Speaker 1: house was placed a golden image of Aphrodite, and across
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  Speaker 1: the ramparts on either hand could be seen a stretch
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  Speaker 1: of blue waters and faint purple hills. The scene was lovely,
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  Speaker 1: not merely in the harmony of its color, but in
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  Speaker 1: the exquisite delicacy of its architectural proportions. No nation has
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  Speaker 1: ever felt the pure beauty of mere construction so strongly
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  Speaker 1: as the Greeks, and in this respect mister Godwin has
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  Speaker 1: fully caught the Greek feeling. The play opened by the
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  Speaker 1: entrance of the chorus, white vesttured and gold fileted, under
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  Speaker 1: the leadership of Miss Kinnaird, whose fine gestures and rhythmic
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  Speaker 1: movements were quite admirable. In answer to their appeal, the
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  Speaker 1: stage curtains slowly divided, and from the House of Paris
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  Speaker 1: came forth Helen herself in a robe woven with all
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  Speaker 1: the wonders of war, embroidered with the pageant of battle.
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  Speaker 1: With her were her two handmaidens, one in white and
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  Speaker 1: yellow and one in green. Hecuba followed in somber gray
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  Speaker 1: of mourning, and priorm in kingly garb of gold and purple,
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  Speaker 1: and Paris in Phrygian cap and light archer's dress. And
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  Speaker 1: when at sunset the lover of Helen was borne back,
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  Speaker 1: wounded from the field down from the oaks of Ida,
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  Speaker 1: stole known in the flowing drapery of the daughter of
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  Speaker 1: a river God, every fold of her garments rippling like
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  Speaker 1: dim water as she moved. As regards the acting, the
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  Speaker 1: two things the Greek valued most in actors were grace
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  Speaker 1: of gesture and music of voice. Indeed, to gain these virtues,
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  Speaker 1: their actors used to subject themselves to a regular course
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  Speaker 1: of jymnah plastics and a particular regime of diet. Health
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  Speaker 1: being to the Greeks not merely a quality of art,
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  Speaker 1: but a condition of its production. Whether or not our
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  Speaker 1: English actors hold the same view, may be doubted, but
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  Speaker 1: mister Vesin certainly has always recognized the importance of a
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  Speaker 1: physical as well as of an intellectual training for the stage,
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  Speaker 1: and his performance of King Priam was distinguished by stately
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  Speaker 1: dignity and most musical enunciation. With mister Vesin, grace of
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  Speaker 1: gesture is an unconscious result, not a conscious effort. It
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  Speaker 1: has become nature because it was On's art. Mister Beabaum
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  Speaker 1: Tree also is deserving a very high praise for his
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  Speaker 1: paris Ease and elegance characterized every movement he made, and
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  Speaker 1: his voice was extremely effective. Mister Tree is the perfect
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  Speaker 1: proteus of actors. He can wear the dress of any
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  Speaker 1: sentry and the appearance of any age, and has a
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  Speaker 1: marvelous capacity of absorbing his personality into the character he
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  Speaker 1: is creating. To have method without mannerism is given only
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  Speaker 1: to a few, but among the view is mister Tree.
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  Speaker 1: Miss Alma Murray does not possess the physique requisite for
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  Speaker 1: our conception of Helen, but the beauty of her movements
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  Speaker 1: and the extremely sympathetic quality of her voice gave an
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  Speaker 1: indefinable charm to her performance. Missus Joppling looked like a
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  Speaker 1: poem from the pantheon, and indeed the persone mute were
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  Speaker 1: not the least effective figures in the plain Hecuba was
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  Speaker 1: hardly a success in acting. The impression of sincerity is
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  Speaker 1: conveyed by tone, not by mere volume of voice, and
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  Speaker 1: whatever influence emotion has on utterance, it is certainly not
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  Speaker 1: in the direction of false emphasis. Missus biabam trees Inknown
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  Speaker 1: was much better, and had some fine moments of passion.
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  Speaker 1: But the harsh, realistic shriek with which the nymph flung
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  Speaker 1: herself from the battlements, however effective it might have been
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  Speaker 1: in a comedy of Sardou or in one of mister
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  Speaker 1: Burnham's farces, was quite out of place in the representation
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  Speaker 1: of a Greek tragedy. The classical drama is an imaginative,
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  Speaker 1: poetic art which requires the grand style for its interpretation
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  Speaker 1: and uses its effects by the most ideal means. It
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  Speaker 1: is in the operas of Wagner, not in popular melodrama,
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  Speaker 1: that any approximation to the Greek method can be found.
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  Speaker 1: Better to wear mask and buskin than to mar by
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  Speaker 1: any modernity of expression. The calm majesty of Melpomeny as
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  Speaker 1: an artistic whole However, the performance was undoubtedly a great success.
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  Speaker 1: It has been much praised for its archaeology, But mister
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  Speaker 1: Godwin is something more than a mere antiquarian. He takes
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  Speaker 1: the facts of archaeology, but he converts them into artistic
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  Speaker 1: and dramatic effects. And the historical accuracy that underlies the
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  Speaker 1: visible shapes of beauty that he presents to us is not,
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  Speaker 1: by any means the distinguishing quality of the complete work
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  Speaker 1: of art. This quality is the absolute unity and harmony
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  Speaker 1: of the entire presentation, the presence of one mind controlling
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  Speaker 1: the most minute details and revealing itself only in that
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  Speaker 1: trupe perfection which hides personality. On more than one occasion,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed to me that the stage was kept a
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  Speaker 1: little too dark, and that a purely picturesque effect of
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  Speaker 1: light and shade was substituted for the plastic clearness of
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  Speaker 1: outline that the Greeks so desired. Some objection, too, might
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  Speaker 1: be made to the late character of the statue of Aphrodite,
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  Speaker 1: which was decidedly Postpericlion. These, however, are unimportant points. The
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  Speaker 1: performance was not intended to be an absolute reproduction of
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  Speaker 1: the Greek stage of the fifth century. Before Christ. It
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  Speaker 1: was simply the presentation in Greek form of a poem
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  Speaker 1: conceived in the Greek spirit, and the secret of its
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  Speaker 1: beauty was the perfect correspondence of form and matter, the
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  Speaker 1: delicate equilibrium of spirit and sense. As for the play,
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  Speaker 1: it had, of course to throw away many sweet, superfluous
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  Speaker 1: graces of expression before it could adapt itself to the
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  Speaker 1: conditions of theatrical presentation. But much that is good was retained,
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  Speaker 1: and the choruses, which really possess some pure notes of
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  Speaker 1: lyric loveliness, were sung in their entirety. Here and there,
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  Speaker 1: it is true, occur such lines as what wilt Thou do?
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  Speaker 1: What can? The handful still left, lines that owe their
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  Speaker 1: bloan verse character more to the courtesy of the printer
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  Speaker 1: than to the genius of the poet, for without rhythm
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  Speaker 1: and melody, there is no verse at all, and the
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  Speaker 1: attempt to fit Greek forms of construction to our English
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  Speaker 1: language often gives the work the air of an awkward translation. However,
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  Speaker 1: there is a great deal that is pleasing in Helena
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  Speaker 1: and Troyus, and on the whole the play was worthy
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  Speaker 1: of its pageant, and the poem deserved the peplams. It
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  Speaker 1: is much to be regretted that mister Godwin's beautiful theater
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  Speaker 1: cannot be made of permanent institution. Even looked at from
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  Speaker 1: the low standpoint of educational value, such a performance as
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  Speaker 1: that given last Monday might be of the greatest service
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  Speaker 1: to modern culture. And who knows but a series of
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  Speaker 1: these productions might civilize South Kensington and give tone to Brompton. Still,
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  Speaker 1: it is something to have shown our artists a dream
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  Speaker 1: of form in days of thought, and to have allowed
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  Speaker 1: the Philistines to peer into paradise. And this is what
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  Speaker 1: mister Godwin has done. End of Section twenty four. Helena
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  Speaker 1: Introus