26. The Public, Critics and Theaters

Paul Bourget once wrote about this subject. And the good European uber-critics say that Bourget can hear the grass growing at the bottom of the soul. So you have to prick up your ears when Bourget talks. Now Bourget says: whoever writes an Iyrian poem, a ballad or a novel doesn't care about the audience. The less he cares about the audience, the better his work of art will be. He writes according to the inclinations of his artistic soul. But this is not at all the case with the playwright. He must know that his play is intended for a number of two thousand people present in the theater. He must be aware that this crowd goes to the theater to spend a few hours in a pleasant way. The audience has been working all day, in the office, on the stock exchange, in the parliament hall. This audience has very specific sympathies and antipathies. It has "sacred feelings" that it does not want to see hurt; and above all, it does not want to exert itself mentally after the hard work of the day. This audience also has very specific customs and passions. They will only enjoy plays that are written in the spirit of these mores and passions. It is now up to the playwright to hit on exactly what this audience likes to hear and see with his plays. He will be an idealist if he believes that he will find an idealistically-minded audience in the theater; and he will be mean if he believes that a mean audience will be called upon to applaud him or hiss out his play.

Pay attention to what your audience wants, and then write with that in mind! That is the recipe that the fine psychologist Paul Bourget gives to all playwrights. Yes, he goes even further. There are, he says, religious and political fashions. The playwright must not go against these, even though they change roughly every two to three years. And even more. There are actors who remain in the audience's favor longer than political and religious fashions. They are called upon to help the playwrights get back on their feet. The playwrights have to write the roles for them. They have to ask themselves what will suit the popular actor so-and-so if they want to create this or that character poetically. According to Bourget, there is always a Mr. So-and-so who is so popular that he can guarantee success. Then the playwrights try to write such roles that this popular actor can make something of them.

Two things are possible - to speak pedantically, perhaps in the manner of Lessing - either Bourget wants to characterize the entire frivolity of a certain type of dramatic production and therefore depicts in paradoxical form the worst excesses in the field he has in mind; or he is not speaking ironically; he means the thing as he says it. In the former case, he could have spared himself his entire speech. For then it would be the most superfluous thing in the world. It has long been known that there are playmakers who speculate and prostitute themselves on the stock market of the common taste of the crowd - in order to make money. The man with the fine ears for the most intimate tones of the human soul doesn't need to tell us that.

But it doesn't matter whether Paul Bourger is joking or serious. What matters is that idealists and those who are honest about art repeat his words, and that it has come to the point where many of these honest people who look at the successes of the speculators described above no longer believe that the theater is an art institution.

And the matter is so simple. The contrast that Bourget crystallizes between novel, ballad, Iyrian poem and play is simply not valid. There are artists who write novels according to their sensibility, their inspiration, their genius, and there are novelists who write fodder for a crowd whose customs, passions and habits they know and whom they want to flatter. And likewise there are dramatists who write plays according to their artistic convictions, and playwrights who write according to what the public wants. It is the fundamental error of Bourget's reflections and many similar ones that the spectator starts from the point of view of the recipient, the connoisseur. This must always lead to dubious results. For works of art that are created because the connoisseur wants them in a certain way are not worth talking about. The connoisseur, the public - they may have the best tendencies, but they must not have any influence on the quality of a work of art. Not the slightest detail of a work of art may be formed in the way the public wants it to be. This "may" is actually a poorly used word. I should rather say: it will never occur to the real artist to make the slightest detail of his work pleasing to the public.

As long as there has been a science of art, there has always been talk of the demands of genuine art. The artist must do this or that in this or that way, it was said. It is in the masters' blood, and even the most modern minds cannot break free from it. A person who suddenly stood up in front of them and said: this rose is not right, it should be different, they thought he was a madman. But they dare to tell the artist every day: you have to be like this or like that.

Oh, now I can hear the very clever objecting again: yes, then the critic would have to say yes and amen to everything, then he would have to accept everything. Oh no, gentlemen! If someone comes up with a "play" that doesn't even belong in the category of "plays", then I treat him just like a person who wants to sell me a hideous thing made of papier-mâché for a real rose.

While the strict gentlemen do not always know the differences that come into consideration here. A few days ago, the Residenz Theater in Berlin presented an endlessly boring, bland piece: "Snapshots". In the evening, the audience cheered and would probably have hissed in their sleep at a play by Johannes. But not until the next day: that's when you could experience its true wonders.

With a few exceptions - including, of course, the ever-trusty Aunt Voss - the newspapers had something to say "in praise of the author". Some particularly gifted critics even said that this same author, who until now had only dabbled in light jokes, should now be taken seriously in literary terms. And some "very fine" ones sensed that he really knew how to observe life. It is really impossible for a critic - using this word as a technical term - who has such views and feelings about experience and "correct observation" to be able to judge anything belonging to art even somewhat correctly.

"Snapshots" is a - thing, stitched together and cobbled together from the "observations" of a man who doesn't know how to observe people in life at all, but who only seems to know life on stage. It is simply incomprehensible to me how an excellent actor can stoop to cobbling such a thing together.

I really don't want to write a review of the play. Because it has nothing to do with literature and therefore doesn't need to be mentioned in a literary magazine. But the next morning, when I read the reviews of the play in the various newspapers, my face flushed - I'm not sure what kind of flush. What objections did these critics have when the "Dramatische Gesellschaft" recently performed Johannes Schlaf's "Gertrud" in order to fulfill a literary duty of honour! And how do they behave towards Mr. Jarno now?

It is a culturally and historically strange phenomenon that people are allowed to speak in major newspapers who live in such a barbarism of taste. Yes, these are the people who do not know what a real rose is and therefore accept a thing made of paper and say: see how it lives. This is what the real rose must be like.

Should we now assume that the critics sitting in the theater form a select group that feels better, more distinguished, more artistic than the audience? If so, one must form very peculiar opinions about Paul Bourget's theory. Or should one calmly admit that the public as a whole is above the critics? But what a state that would be! In short, there is something here that cannot quite be resolved. It is so strange. Once you've had a cozy get-together with critics whose intellectual products you find dreadful, they can be quite nice. If you read them again, you find them appalling. There must be some unknown factor at play.

I remembered the good Bourget when I read the reviews of Mr. Jarno's work in the Berlin dailies. That's why I took him as my starting point. I said to myself, this is how a playwright who asks: how should I write so that I please the crowd? Well, that's enough. I think: no artist can think the way Paul Bourget demands of the playwright. Or there are no artists among theater poets. What would Schiller, Shakespeare and so on say about this?