by Kirk Woodward
[This is the second installment of Kirk Woodward’s “Shaw Sampler.” (It’s probably useful to have read at least Kirk’s introductory remarks from Part 1, published on 31 October, before proceeding to Part 2, below, so I recommend going back and picking that up first.) Here, you will read more of Shaw’s remarks on playwriting, as well as some comments on acting.
[As Kirk has asserted, Shaw “wrote a great deal elsewhere from all angles about theater, of course, . . . but I stuck to the reviews [from the Saturday Review], which to my mind have a charm that some of the other pieces don’t, although he’s always Shaw.” The esteemed writer, Kirk also observed in an earlier post, “refused to be confined to just the contents of the art he was reviewing.”
[A list of Kirk Woodward’s previous posts on the subject of George Bernard Shaw appears in the introduction to “Shaw Sampler, Part 1.”]
Shaw's criteria for excellence in playwriting are not limited to those of social reforms:
People’s ideas, however useful they may be for embroidery, especially in passages of comedy, are not the true stuff of drama, which is always the naïve feeling underlying the idea. (“Daly Undaunted,” 18 July 1896)
For me the play is not the thing, but its thought, its purpose, its feeling, and its execution. (“Mr William Archer’s Criticisms,” 13 April 1895)
It is dangerous to be serious unless you have something real to be serious about. (“Shakespear and Mr Barrie,” 13 November 1897)
(J. M. Barrie [1860-1937] was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best known as the creator of Peter Pan [1904]. Shaw’s review was of productions of Barrie’s play The Little Minister and The Tempest [1610-11] by William Shakespeare.)
It is vain to protest against a necessary institution, however corrupt, until you have an efficient and convincing substitute ready. (“Satan Saved at Last,” 16 January 1897)
Shaw, of course, feels that he has just that.
Your great man does not waste his work on the impracticable. (“At the Pantomime,” 23 January 1897)
In the meantime, his reviews are full of shrewd observations about playwriting as it is practiced. For example, on translations:
Mr [James] Graham [fl. late 19th century] has translated two of the most famous of [the plays of José Echegaray y Eizaguirre, 1832-1916] into a language of his own, consisting of words taken from the English dictionary, and placed, for the most part, in an intelligible grammatical relation to one another. (“Spanish Tragedy and English Farce,” 27 April 1895)
On comedy:
Comedy must be instantly and vividly intelligible or it is lost. (“The New Ibsen Play,” 30 January 1897)
On style:
A dramatist should never forget that plays want plenty of fresh air. (“Two Easter Pieces,” 18 April 1896)
On characterization:
He made the mistake – common in an irreligious age – of conceiving a religious man as a lugubrious one. (“Michael and His Lost Angel,” 18 January 1896)
Shaw had strong opinions about how plays should be performed. An illustration is his analysis of the visual environment of plays (often referred to as “scenery,” but involving the entire environment on the stage). How elaborate? How simple? What architecture?
The manager [we would say “director”] who stages every play in the same way is a bad manager, even when he is an adept at his one way. (“Shakespear and Mr Barrie,” 13 November 1897)
It requires the nicest judgment to know exactly how much help the imagination wants. There is no general rule, not even for any particular author. (“Shakespear and Mr Barrie,” 13 November 1897)
In art, what poverty can only do unhandsomely and stingily it should not do at all. (“John Gabriel Borkman,” 8 May 1897)
And, for those who believe that the modern musical theater began with Oklahoma! (1943) or possibly Show Boat (1937), there is this published on 23 January 1897 from his review of a Christmas pantomime called Aladdin:
The music shews the modern tendency to integrate into a continuous score, and avoid set “numbers.” (“At the Pantomime,” 23 January 1897)
ACTING
Many reviewers don’t get much beyond describing acting with an adjective or two, like “excellent” or “perfect.” Shaw has as much space for his articles in the Saturday Review as he wants, and he uses a great deal of it to talk about acting. Some of his descriptions of performances are quoted to this day, particularly those of Eleonora Duse (1848-1924) and Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923). (For a discussion of the contrast of these two Belle Époque actresses, see “A Theatrical Showdown” [9 April 2025].) His statement that
Self-betrayal, magnified to suit the optics of the theatre, is the whole art of acting (“The Immortal William,” 2 May 1896)
(The title of this review, a phrase Shaw used often, refers to William Shakespeare, the subject of The Shakespeare Anniversary Celebration the reviewer attended on 23 April 1896, the date traditionally commemorated as the Bard’s birthday.)
is one of the watchwords of the influential acting teacher Sanford Meisner (1905-1997). Shaw writes about
. . . the immense pressure of thought and labor which earns for the greatest artists that rarest of all faiths, faith in their real selves. (“La Princesse Lointaine,” 22 June 1895)
(La Princesse lointaine is an 1895 classical romance by French poet and playwright Edmond Rostand [1868-1918], the world-famous author of 1897’s Cyrano de Bergerac. La Princesse lointaine was written for Sarah Bernhardt and premiered at her theater in Paris. Shaw reviewed the play with Bernhardt in the title role when she brought the production to London. There is a “script report” of La Princesse lointaine on this blog.)
The actor’s business is not to supply an idea with a sounding board, but with a credible, simple, and natural human being to utter it when its time comes and not before. (“John Gabriel Borkman,” 8 May 1897)
He believes in formal training for actors (which was almost nonexistent in his day):
The awakening and culture of the artistic conscience is a real service which a teacher can render to an actor. (“The Chili Widow,” 12 October 1895)
Neglect of training very quickly discredits itself. (“The Chili Widow,” 12 October 1895)
It does not follow that the only alternative to misguided study is no study. (“Another Failure,” 8 February 1896)
Mr Lionel Brough [1836-1909] never stands between the public and Mr Lionel Brough’s part. This seems simple but just try to do it, and you will appreciate the training that it costs to make a capable actor. (“‘The Spacious Times,’” 11 July 1896)
He provides concrete insights into aspects of an actor’s trade. On speaking Shakespeare’s lines:
He [Johnston Forbes-Robertson, 1853-1937] does not utter half a line; then stop to act; then go on with another half line; and then stop to act again, with the clock running away with Shakespear’s chances all the time. He plays as Shakespear should be played, on the line and to the line, with the utterance and acting simultaneous, inseparable and in fact identical. (“‘Hamlet,’” 2 October 1897)
Shakespear, rattled and rushed and spouted and clattered through in the ordinary professional manner, all but kills the audience with tedium. (“‘The Spacious Times,’” 11 July 1896)
The actor who hurries reminds the spectators of the flight of time, which it is his business to make them forget. (“‘The Spacious Times,’” 11 July 1896)
On diction:
The consonants often slip away unheard, and nothing remains but a musical murmur of vowels, soothing to the ear, but baffling and exasperating to people whose chief need at the moment is to find out what the play is about. (“Mr Grundy’s Improvements on Dumas,” 17 July 1897)
(The review is of The Silver Key, a 1897 comedy in four acts, adapted from Alexandre Dumas père’s Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle [1839] by English dramatist Sydney Grundy [1848-1914].)
I am on the side of smart execution: if there are two ways of being natural in speech on the stage, I suggest that Miss Phillip’s way [Kate Phillip, 1856-1931] is better than the fluffy way. (“Ibsen Triumphant,” 22 May 1897)
On shouting and “carrying on” onstage:
Ranting is not, as it is generally assumed to be, bad acting. It is not acting at all, but the introduction of an exhibition of force for the sake of force. (“La Princesse Lointaine,” 22 June 1895)
On timing:
. . . the unpardonable sin against the author of giving the signal that the play is over ten minutes before the fall of the curtain, instead of speaking the last line as if the whole evening were still before the audience. (“An Old New Play and a New Old One,” 23 February 1895)
On “big” and “small” roles:
If [directors] take care of the minor actors the leading ones will take care of themselves. (“Shakespear in Manchester,” 20 March 1897)
He saves his highest praise for the actor who gives himself over thoroughly to the presentation of character. In this sense “acting” which identifies itself as such on stage is to be avoided:
Acting is the one thing that is intolerable in a lecturer. Even on the stage it is a habit that only the finest actors get rid of completely. (“Why Not Sir Henry Irving?” 9 February 1895)
(Henry Irving [1838-1905] was a British actor-manager; he took complete responsibility for the productions in which he played the leading roles. Irving became the first actor in England to be awarded a knighthood.)
Mr [Charles Francis] Coghlan [1842-1899] created the part, like a true actor, by the simple but very unusual method of playing it from its own point of view. (“New Years Dramas,” 4 January 1896)
“Take care of the character, and the lines will take care of themselves.” (“Toujours Shakespear,” 5 December 1896)
(Shaw calls this the “golden rule” of acting)
The one advantage that amateurs have over professionals – and it is such an overwhelming advantage when exhaustively used that the best amateur performances are more instructive than the most elaborate professional ones – is the possibility of unlimited rehearsal. (“Elizabethan Athletics at Oxford,” 5 March 1898)
On versatility:
What I mean by classical is that Mr Forbes-Robertson can present a dramatic hero as a man whose passions are those which have produced the philosophy, the poetry, the art, and the statecraft of the world, and not merely those which have produced its weddings, coroners’ inquests, and executions. (“‘Hamlet,’” 2 October 1897)
On long runs in productions:
The worst of the application of the long-run system to heroic plays is that, instead of killing the actor, it drives him to limit himself to such effects as he can repeat to infinity without committing suicide. (“Hamlet Revisited,” 18 December 1897)
What we want in order to get the best work is a repertory theatre with alternative casts. (“Hamlet Revisited,” 18 December 1897)
Because the theater is a fairly insular world, the actors run the risk of being unaware of what’s going on in the society around them:
When the drama loses its hold on life, and criticism is dragged down with it, the actor’s main point of intellectual contact with the world is cut off; for he reads nothing else with serious attention. (“Ghosts at the Jubilee,” 3 July 1897)
(The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne of England. [The actual anniversary fell on 20 June 1897.])
No physical charm is noble as well as beautiful unless it is the expression of a moral charm. (“Duse and Bernhardt,” 15 June 1895)
(That’s Eleonora Duse, Italian actress, and Sarah Bernhardt, French actress, rival theatrical divas. See above.)
Celebrity doesn’t make the actor’s job easier:
Our professional actors are now looked at by the public from behind the scenes. (“‘The Spacious Times,’” 11 July 1896)
And Shaw recognizes that when it comes down to basics, a theater is only the people who make it up:
A theatre is at bottom nothing but the conduct of a manager, the author, and the company. (“Manchester Still Expiating,” 12 February 1898)
AND A MISCELLANY
Much of the pleasure in reading Shaw’s reviews comes from his comments on non-theatrical issues. They tend to read as aphorisms, as succinct expressions of universal truths. That may or may not be the case – as noted above, Shaw consistently presents his own opinions as universal facts. In any case, here are a few examples of the wide-ranging topics beyond theater that Shaw covers in his reviews.
Integrity consists in obeying the morality which you accept. (“Poor Shakespear!” 6 July 1895)
Whenever the Church loses supporters, it is not in the least because The Origin of Species has superseded the book of Genesis, but solely because, from one cause or another – usually irreligion and incapacity in the priesthood – people find that they are neither temporarily happier nor permanently better for attending its services. (“On Nothing in Particular and the Theatre in General,” 14 March 1896)
Men believe in the professions as they believe in ghosts, because they want to believe in them. (“Henry IV,” 16 May 1896)
If there is one lesson that real life teaches us more insistently than another, it is that we must not infer one quality from another, or even rely on the consistency of ascertained qualities under all circumstances. (“Shakespear and Mr Barrie,” 13 November 1897)
Morals change more slowly than costumes and manners, and instincts and passions than morals. (“The Second Dating of Sheridan,” 27 June 1896)
(Richard Brinsley Sheridan [1751-1816] was an Anglo-Irish playwright, poet, and politician. He’s best known as the author of The Rivals [1775] and The School for Scandal [1777], post-Restoration comedies of manners.)
The country you have never lived in is the one about which you are the most likely to have romantic illusions. (“Mainly About Melodrama,” 3 October 1896)
I habitually put off answering letters, in the hope that the march of events will presently save me the trouble of dealing with them. (“Some Other Critics,” 20 June 1896)
Shaw quotes the intriguing saying, “There is only one art.” I haven’t been able to find the source of that saying (assuming it wasn’t actually Shaw), but it’s provocative. Surely one element of any art – or of the “one art” – is giving pleasure, and Shaw certainly does that.
[There will be a third part to Kirk Woodward’s
“Shaw Sampler” series that is made up of some notes and commentary of the
columns quoted in Parts 1 and 2. Along with explanations of what
Shaw covered in the columns and interpretations of the essays’ sometimes
curious, provocative, and obscure titles and headlines, it will include
expanded versions of some of the identification inserts in Parts 1 and 2, as
well as notes that don’t appear in the main installments. “Shaw
Sampler, Part 3: Addendum,” to be published on Thursday, 6 November, will be
compiled by Rick
On Theater’s editor.)]
