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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 1899)
THE COURIElv. (I IMXIUMMIIIIHIIII I t u t THE PASSING SHOW t Jk 9 Will A?ATUCD Israel Zangwill recently delivered his locturo on ''Tho Drama an a Fine Art" hero. Zangwill has written a great many very clover and very witty articles on tho thoatro, but I think most of ua went to hoar him chiefly because onco in his early yeuth ho wroto a very re markable novel called ''Tho Master." Since Mr. Zangwill has boon lecturing in America much has been said of his voice and personal mannerism on the platform that is patently uncalled for. A lecturer is not supposed to be an orator or a vaudeville "artist," and his business is not to captivate his audience. His appeal is to the intelleat solely, and bo long as ho speaks distinctly enough to be understood and conducts himself .. with reasonable decorum, hs accent and "- his attitudes are his own affaire. In the first place I wish to BBy that this gentleman's portraits give a very wrong impression of him. Handsome he cer tainly is not, but neither is he a freak. I was rather pleasurably surprised, in deed, when this slender, pale gentleman stepped before us. His physiognomy is typically eemitic, the bold nose, thn pale, olive skin, the full lips, tho heavy dark eyes, the shaggy black hair, suggested not only the Jew, but Oriental Jew. Ho has that mobility of feature which bo speaks a highly developed nervous or ganization, and there is about him a certain mo9t positive atmosphere of scholarship. A wit as sharp and fan tastic aa Heine's, a face full of tho ideal ism of his race, he suggested even more strongly than the scholar the dreamer of the Ghetto. For besides its pawn brokers, its sweatshop toilers, its itiner ant peddlars, its Shylocks and money hagglers, its money barons and pillagers, the Ghetto has always had its dream Ciifc. era, and their dreams have changed the Wt course of history and founded empires. Without attempting to give an analysis of his lecture, 1 will mention merely some of the points which moBt interested me. Art, Mr. Zangwill defined, in ,Spen cer'B terms, as the overflow of energy not exhausted in the struggle for ex istence. The drama did not begin as an artistic production. It had no inten tion of being artistic. Its iutentions, on tho contrary, were strictly honorable. The first drama wbb not drama at all, but life. The conditions of -the modern stage are largely the result of the con flicting Hellenic ad Semitic ideals which bavo modified all western civiliza tion. The Hebrews, indeed, felt the beauty of holiness, but the Greek felt the holiness of beauty. The English stage has suffered a great misfortune in its complete separation from the church. From this separation it has grown frivol ous and has lost the desire to deal with I the most seriouB questions of life. The Vs x-fpuritan revolution againBt the drama Srwas based upon a true instinct. Stupid people are often right upon wrong grounds. But the inborn instincts of humanity are not to be killed entirely, even by Puritanism, and by the irony of things the churchgoer often take9 bis sornion as art, something to be enjoyed and criticised, rathot than to be acted upon. A good play must have three things; unity, lifelikeness, and the element of spiritual stimulation. Under the head of the first of these essential qualities, Mr. Zangwill said that Ibsen is the greatest living master of dramatic form. He does not write parts, but plays. In Alma Tadema's studio in London there Is a screen made of small rectangular panels; each of these panels was decorated by one of the artist's painter friends; the marine painter who habitually uses a bIx foot w canvas, and tho miniaturo paintor who handlcB only small pieces of ivory, has adnpted himsolf and his mannerisms to thoso rigid, rectangular panolB. The stage is much such an austere back ground, and tho dramatist who can ex press himsolf most porfectly within those rigid limitations ia tho boat crafts man. Ibsen has mastered the art of presenting n dramatic theme in a dra matic way. Ho roulizod that in every family, in every group of human beings closely rolatod togother, there ia a mo merit of awakening, of exposition. That ovents inovitably bring about a house hold climux whon tho members of tho family or community are driven to spotch and "havo it out" with each other, when they voico Becrots long locked up, protest against indignities long endured, speak of hopes or pas sions long concealed. In short, tho ro mantic revolt occurs every day iu the unit of society, the family. And it is this dramatic revelation of lifo that Ibsen seizes and makes the cardinal force in his plays. In speaking of lifelikeness in plays Mr. Zangwill Bald that thiB does not mean that the characters of a drama must bo nal people, but that they must be true typos. No two lovers ever spoke as Romeo and Juliet, yet thoy express the feelings of all lovers. The nearer you approach to life tho further you de part from art. When I wiBh to particu larly please my servant maid, 1 get her tickets to some performance where she can boo a real fire engine or a real snow storm on the stage. She can see either presented very much more realistically on the street any day, but we are all very fond of the real thing in tho wrong place. In fiction everything is true ex cept the names and dates; in history nothing ip true except the names and dateB. That play which depends for its interest on eome surprise at the end is a poor play. Surprise is not art emotion. You can only bo surprised once, but a thing of beauty is a joy forever. People are not fond of seeing their own kind of realism on the stage. The man who beats his wife at homo, is the man who loudly applauds the virtuous hero in a melodrama. One of tho evils of modern English dramatic contttruction is the so called "comic element" which is dragged in with no logical sequence and at the cost of the serious motif of the plaj . Suppose that half of the canvas of a picture representing the death of Lin coln werb employed to depict the court ship of a cook. The plays of Bulwer Lytton appear very meritorious, to an uncultivated mind. Just as fine feath ers appear fashionable to a chamber maid. Under the head of spiritual stimula tion, Mr. Zangwill said that a play might lack both the former qualities named and still, through this element alone, be a great play, but without this it could not lire. Many of Shakspere's strongest plays utterly lack unity. He simply followed the rambling plots of tho old novels ho appropriated. They were only possible on a stage without changes of scenery and elaborate ap pointments. They are practicable now only becaueo they are not acted as they were written, and were practicable then only because they were not acted at all. Thoy owe their perennial youth chiefly to this quality of spiritual stimulation. Shakespere is no longer classic art, but romantic art. His art is, in fact, Gothic art. - The old playwrights, said Mr. Zang will, are dead and buried, the old plays are dead and printed. You can buy them at the price of eggs, twenty-five cents a dozen mostly bad. The only English comedies since Shakspere's time which have the breath of life in them, are "The School for Scandal' and "Sho Stoops to Oonquor. " The French Btago alone has preserved its literary traditions, In .our dramatic poverty K K f I E CO., 1224 OSt, Lincoln, Neb. This fall we arc showing" a very strong line of medium furniture, carpets, curtains and draperies. Here are two of our leaders in din ing" room furniture. .. v Solid oak dining" table, top 42 inch square, "very heavy and will last a life time. Six foot length,, $6.50;eight foot length $8. Solid . ,oak dining" chair, cane seat,. brace' arm. A very ' g"ood i Jl TTT m tning". w e sen six ot Yi them for $5. FREIGHT PAID ONE IJUNDRED MILES. ?r?nz'?''e'K .I & we have stolen and appropriated various plays from tho French. We have legitimised their natural children, turned their intrigues into flirtations and their exquisite language into mean, ingloss twaddle and generally emascu lated them. But such' virtue ia indeed its own reward. Of dramatic criticism Mr. Zangwill, said it is an art now dca'd. No man has' any particular, right to print hte own' opinions about a play, and for a trained theatre-goer to atterant to voice tho opinions of the masses is absurd. How can he possibly Bee with the eyes of the man who goes to. the play only occa sionally, who does not know that the hero is not young,' the heroine not beau tiful, and that the villain is less wicked than either of them. , In the course of his tour through the east this whimsical, brilliant young He brew has dropped here and there spark ling witticisms that are worth remem bering. When he arrived hore a dele gation met him at the train and pro ceeded to lay out his program for him; a dinner at the hotel with speeches and toasts, a tour of the Carnegie galleries attended by tho fairest of the daughters of Israel, a reception at five o'clock be fore the lecture, a banquet at tho Hotel Scbenley after tho lecture, etc. When they had finished the weary scholar, ex hausted by a long series of such festivi ties elBowhero, murmured: "And my funoral, gentlemen, you seem to have noglected any arrangements for that? Surely that is the logical se quence of your program." At one of bis receptions here the daughter of one of our oil kings asked him for his autograph in one of his books. He assured her that he did not travel with his books, not even with sample copies. The dauntless maiden sent a bell boy out to procure a book by Zangwill, any old one be could find. Tho boy" returned ' with "The Kiog of' Schnorrers" and on tho fly leaf the author obligingly wroto: "To . , a schnorrerd autograph, but' granted with pleasure. 1. Zangwill.'' The young la'dy tactfully remarked that, she had never read the book, whereat the author exclaimed with ambiguous enthusiasm: j ' "You are to "be congratulated, mad emoiselle, congratulated!" When dining with a noted collector of book plates in Boston, Mr, Zangwill ex- claimed, when his soup was served to him: . "What! Why I expected it to be served in a book plate! " ' r . ' '-' In the Harvard museum be stood meditating for some time before the case of skeletons illustrating the' evolu tion of man from the ape, and 'then turning to the student who conducted him he said cheerfully, "ad now let's go and see the latest stage by all means let ub call upon the professor of psychology." PiTTsnoRa, Pa. THE WAY TO GO TO CALIFORNIA is in h tourist sleeping car, personally conducted, via of the Burlington route. You don't change cars. You make fast time. You see the finest scenery on the globe. Your car is not bo expensively finished nor so fine to look at bb a palace sleeper, but it is just as clean, just as comfortable, just as good to ride in, and nearly $20 cheaper. The Burlington excursions leave Lin coln at 6:10 p. m. every Thursday, ' reaching San Francisco Sunday and Los AogeleB Monday. Porter with each car. Excursion manager with each party. . For folder giving full information call at B & M depot or City ticket office, corner lOthand O streets. ' G. W. Bonnell, ' 0. P. & T. A