OCR Text |
Show DECLINE OF THE DRAMA, Besides the article in the curreDt number of the North American Re view on the electoral commission, an attractive paper follows on "The De cline of he Drama," by Dion Bouci cault. He divides the drama intn ; two claaaes, the contemporaneous or realistic drama, which ia a reflex of the features of the period, and th-transcendental th-transcendental or unreal drama, where the personnel, the ideas, incidents and language are exaggerated. Tht-contemporaneous Tht-contemporaneous drama is the onlj faithful record of its age. It is show how the drama of each age ha3 re produced tho features of current civilization, civi-lization, with its virtues, its faults ai.u its weaknesses. As diecuvery en larged our knowledge, man w.i3 belittled, be-littled, until the heroes of Shakespear-beoame Shakespear-beoame impossible. During the lflf i hundred years there has grown up generation which demands a practical, prac-tical, utilitarian drama, but not to deep or too flighty. Our Shakeepearf is now occupied ia editing a morning newspaper; Dante is exploring tin isthmus of Panama to locau au inter-oceanic canal; Bacon i-tryiug i-tryiug to reach the north pole while Michael Angelo is running a sewing machine. Aa the newspaper news-paper press has prospered so in proportion pro-portion have tho poet, the novelist and the dramatist disappeared. Tb women now almost monopolize tht department of fiction, while the met are recruited for the ranks of tm press. Boucicault damns the dm matic critic of the newspapers by tht positive assertion that be is and always al-ways has been incapable of discharging discharg-ing his functions. The commercial theatrical managers are also reprobated, repro-bated, and the playwright accmmtH for hia resort to translations ol Fronc I plays rather than to original EuMa compositions by the remark that hi sold a work in England for 100 tha cost him six months hard work t-compoae, t-compoae, and soon after accepted i commission to translate three French plays at 50 apieoe, which afford t; him child's play for a fortnight. Tin decline in the profession of actiu from the (lays of Koruble, Cuok. Keen and Macready, when tin drama was studied as an art as well as a science, shows that this generation genera-tion has utterly lost the tradition oi the Btage in its palmy days. Whan the people shall demand the higher class of dramatic entertainment, Shakespeare and a Oarrick will tip-pear. |