Review of Reviews, iOjl/06. 



IMPRESSIONS OF THE THEATRE. 



MR. BERNARD SHAW'S "MAJOR BARBARA." 



We are getting on. " Major Barbara " is good, 

 distinctly good. It is not by any means ideal even 

 from its own very limited point of view. It is dis- 

 figured by the farcical caricature with which Mr. 

 Bernard Shaw serves up his most serious disserta- 

 tions. But when all drawbacks have been admitted, 

 " Major Barbara " deserves a cordial welcome from 

 all who desire to see the stage rescued from the de- 

 gradation into which it has been dragged by those 

 who regard a play as a mere spectacle at the best or 

 an aphrodisiac at the worst. Here, at least, is an 

 attempt to represent dramatically one of the great 

 problems of life, to discuss seriously an ethical 'jues- 

 tion, and to deal with living men and women as if 

 they were, after all, somewhat in the higher scale of 

 evolution than the small gilded flies of the summer 

 pools or the meretricious decadents whose toying 

 with lechery seems to afford perennial delight to 

 Gaiety audiences. 



I regret to see that a kindly contemporary critic, 

 summing up the result of my " Impressions of the 

 Theatre," makes the extraordinary statement that the 

 result of my pilgrimage has been that "while Mr. 

 Stead here and there saw gleams of good, his final 

 verdict was one of extreme disgust." N 'thing could 

 be further from -the fact than this. I have not yet 

 ventured to pronounce any " final verdict," because 

 I have by no means gone through all the evidence. 

 But so far from coming to the conclusion imputed to 

 me, it would be more near the mark to say that, so 

 far as I have arrived at any "final verdict." it is 

 that while here and there I saw the lurid glow which 

 marks the mouth of the Pit, tnv general impression 

 based upon those nlays which f have seen has been 

 distinctly good. The "Wife Without a Smile" de- 

 served to he burned by the common hangman, and 

 " The Spring Chicken " is an abominable outrage 

 upon morality; but, with these two exceptions. T 

 have seen few plays to which even the most austere 

 moralist could take exception. Omitting the two 

 above-mentioned exceptions, the worst plays that I 

 have seen were not intellectually worse than the ave- 

 rage popular novel, and their moral tone was. T 

 think, distinctly higher. Of course it will be ob- 

 jected that I have so far only seen the best that was 

 going, and that is true. But so far as concerns the 

 best plays that have been put on the stage — on the 

 London stage — in the last twelve months, it is simply 

 nonsense to say : — 



Is it, or is it not. a fa/rt that at least five plays out of 

 six turn upon what is called "love"?— and such love!— love 

 decorated, made musical, floated on sparkling dialogue, 

 more or less inane, but snarklins: for all that; and vet. all 

 the time, essent'allv animal, vulgar, vicious, and. in every 

 sense of the word, immoral. The so-called " problem 

 plays" are nearly all that: so are most of the musical 



comedies. It is always the same old theme over and over 

 again; mid one need not see many of them to know that. 



I have now seen twenty-six plays, and certainly 

 five out of six have not been like that — have, in fact, 

 been quite other than that. 



Take " Major Barbara," for instance, at the Court 

 Theatre. It is certainly not inane. It is exceedingly 

 witty. It is no more animal than the Book of Eccle- 

 siastes. There are vulgar people in it, and vicious 

 people, as there are in the world, but it is in no 

 sense of the word " immoral." Neither is " love" in 

 any sense of the word the motive of the play. It is 

 a very honest and daring attempt to present the 

 agony of a devout soul when the foundations of be- 

 lief disappear. It is a play of a soul's tragedy — a 

 theatrical adaptation of the most sacred of all 

 themes. Since I saw the Passion Play at Oberam- 

 mergau 1 have not seen any play which represented 

 so vividly the pathos of Gethsemane, the tragedy of 

 Calvary. It is true that the real significance of the 

 play is disguised with the utmost art. In every 

 tie Mr. Bernard Shaw takes pains to impress upon 

 his hearers that he is only a jester, and nothing of 

 a preacher. Even when he is touching the deepest 

 note of religious emotion he never lets us forget his 

 cap and bells. That adds to the tragic pathos of the 

 drama, the not less tragically pathetic figure of its 

 author. Readers of Victor Hugo's " L'Homme qui 

 Rit " will remember that the hero, a peer of the 

 realm, had been abducted in childhood by mounte- 

 banks, who. with merciless surgery, imprinted an 

 eternal grimace upon his features. So devilishly was 

 this mutilation performed that it was only under the 

 stress and strain of the most intense emotion that 

 the luckless victim could so command the muscles of 

 his face as to prevent his countenance becoming cne 

 incarnate grin. In the climax " L'Homme qui Rit," 

 with a great effort, effaces this horrible grimace and 

 thrills the House of Lords with a magnificent 'plea 

 for the disinherited of the world. Even when the 

 Chamber was swept by the storm wind of his elo- 

 quence, the luckless speaker momentarily relaxed his 

 control of his muscles, the living mask of leering 

 mirth reappeared, and his audience exploded in in- 

 extinguishable laughter. Mr. Bernard Shaw is 

 ' L'Homme qui Rit " of our times. He would be the 

 prophet of his age. But the soul of Jeremiah is re- 

 incarnated in the body of Grimaldi. Hence Major 

 Barbara's spiritual death and resurrection are served 

 up to the accompaniment of copious sarcastic witti- 

 cisms which keep the house in a titter, occasionally 

 bursting out into a roar of merriment. 



The problem posed — and, it must be admitted, 

 most inadequately discussed — is whether religious 



