THE COURIElv.
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IMXIUMMIIIIHIIII
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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
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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
