15. An Attack on the Theater

In the first February issue of "Kunstwart", the Berlin theater critic Julius Hart publishes a sharp attack on the theater. A man who writes several times a week about theater performances and whose reviews are a pleasure to read because they bear witness to a not insignificant judgment of art, makes the following statement: "So in the first rush of impressions, I easily fall back into sweet youthful idylls and take the theater seriously - terribly seriously and fantasize about all the high and beautiful things to which it should be called. But why should it? With the same right with which I demand of this general showplace that it be a temple of art, I can also demand of a Berlin ballroom and dance hall that it educate the female and male youth to morality and church attendance. But it doesn't. It laughs at me." If the excesses of the theater were spoken of in this way, one could bear it. But Julius Hart, the theater critic, goes on to say that dramatic art and theater must have absolutely nothing to do with each other, because theater, by its very nature, can never serve a real artistic need. "Aesthetic education will always be as low as it is today if we do not fully understand that the stage and art have nothing at all to do with each other, that a play and a drama are two very different things."

It seems almost unbelievable, but there are sentences like the following in the essay: "Unfortunately, our entire dramaturgy is based on the fact that it simply demands from dramatic poetry the very external factors that are decisive in the theater and can lead to laws for the play, but which, like every true work of art, wants to be conceived as an organism, as a living thing flowing out of inner necessities."

Two things are possible, I thought as I read Hart's essay. Either Hart expresses himself sharply in a fit of exasperation at the damage done to the theater and only condemns the theater when it degenerates to such an extent that everything depends on the effect, that the poet who wants to write for the theater is no longer forced to look at the shape of the inner processes, but must ask himself how this or that works? Or does he really mean - which is indeed what it says - "I can approve, recognize and accept the theater as long as I don't regard it as an art institution ... What does stage effect writing have to do with poetry? Theater! Let's finally stop talking about it like an art institution."

On closer consideration, however, I must disregard the first case. Julius Hart is too clever a man to say things that would be on a par with the assertion: Because novelistic poetry can descend to shallow colportage literature, it has nothing to do with art.

But if Julius Hart is really of the opinion that the theater in its essence has nothing to do with art, because the demands of the stage contradict the demands of dramatic poetry, I must say that such a judgment seems to me to betray a complete lack of understanding not only of the nature of the theater, but of the nature of all art.

I must utter trivialities if I am to refute this grotesque judgment. Whoever speaks of a contradiction between the demands of the stage and the inner dramatic necessity could just as well say: the architect should not build houses, but only draw them as they arise as an organism from within himself, because the demands that must be fulfilled when building a house have nothing to do with the inner artistic necessity of his inner sense of form. An architectural work of art is only perfect if the artist already imagines it in such a way that there is harmony between the formations of his sense of form and between the demands that must be made on a real building. A drama will only be perfect if all the elements which make a representation on the stage possible are included in the structure which the poet lets flow out of his personality as a living thing through inner necessity. Embodiment by real people and with the help of stage props must be a contributing factor in the playwright's creative imagination. He must shape his drama in such a way that he sees it in front of him in an ideal performance. Not only the inner necessity of the dramatic development, but also the stage set foreseen in the imagination belongs to the playwright's conception. The stage is simply one of the means with which the playwright works. And a drama that is not suitable for the stage is like a picture that is not painted but merely described.

I was only speaking in commonplaces. I feel like a schoolmaster who digs out the sentences of an elementary book. But when assertions such as those in Hart's essay are put into the world, one is unfortunately forced to do something like that.

Mr. Th. Vischer also understood something of the nature of the arts; and in his lectures on "Beauty and Art" I read the sentence: "You have a beautiful complete combination of arts in the theater. There the architect provides the space, the painter the decoration. The poet writes the text of the drama. The actors bring the characters and scenes he has invented to life." Vischer also knows: "The poet must be at the head of this alliance; his art must prevail." But it is a long way from the assertion that poetry must prevail to Hart's statement: "But what does this stage effect writing have to do with poetry? Theater! Let's finally stop talking about it like an art institution." No one who understands the nature of the arts and their means can take this path.

And now that I have written all this down, I would like to consider a third explanation for Hart's failure against the 'theater. I simply do not believe that Julius Hart can misunderstand the nature of the theater in the way his essay seems to. I hold him in much too high esteem to believe that. That's why I assume that the whole essay is not meant seriously. It is meant ironically. The author actually wants to show how important the theater is for dramatic art and therefore explains how nonsensical the views of those who claim the opposite are. As if someone were to say: canvas, paint and brushes have nothing to do with painting; they only distort and corrupt the pure work of art that flows from the painter's soul with inner necessity. "But what does all this colorfulness have to do with the art of painting? Pictures! Let's finally stop talking about them like works of art."

In these papers, the value of the theater as an art institution was repeatedly mentioned. I would never have agreed to found the "Dramaturgische Blätter" if I had not been convinced of the high mission of the theater. Today, however, we no longer regard the "Schaubühne" as a "moral institution", as Schiller did in his younger years. But all the more as an artistic institution. I am of the opinion that no art can pursue moral goals. That's why I don't demand this of the theater. But I consider the performances of the theater to be the ones that can most easily gain a hearing and interest. A sense of art and taste can be awakened in the widest circles from the stage. What we do to elevate the theater is done to elevate art. What we say against the theater harms art. I will accommodate any reasonable plan to improve our theater conditions.

I don't even want to join in the voices against the calculation of the "effect". It is often necessary to be ungentlemanly. Even Shakespeare did not disdain to take the practical demands of the stage into consideration.

Shakespeare demonstrably arranged the first scenes of his plays in such a way that those who arrive late can understand the course of events. And quite sensible people have maintained that the dramatist in this playwright was so great because he was a great actor.

It will always remain true that a drama that is not suitable for the stage is incomplete. The poet who can only create book dramas is like the painter without hands.

Instead of thundering against the theater, one should rather make suggestions on how to elevate this artistic medium. The lively, sensual embodiment on stage is something quite different from the solitary reading of a book. This is ignored by those who think little of the theater. I don't have a good opinion of those playwrights who can't write plays that are suitable for the stage. A drama must be performable. And the one that is not is bad. A symphony that cannot be heard is also bad. Book dramas are not things.

I know that the best poets have defended the book drama. But that is not the point. The poet may once feel the need to express himself through the means of drama, even if he does not have the talent to present himself in scenic images. Hamerling was a poet of whom I would like to say this. His dramas cannot be performed. That does not detract from his importance. But you have to consider him a bad playwright for that reason.

A good drama will always cry out for the stage.

Disdain for the stage always seems to me to be the sign of a spiritualization of art. But the spiritualization of art is its death. The more sensual art appears, the more it corresponds to its essence. Only periods of artistic decline will place the main emphasis on the nonsensical.