Shaw Sampler, Part 2

 

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)

On the value of rehearsal:

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.)]

Shaw Sampler, Part 1

by Kirk Woodward

[Kirk Woodward, a longtime friend and frequent contributor to Rick On Theater, has written a considerable amount on George Bernard Shaw.  An avid fan of GBS, his past posts on this blog about the renowned Victorian-era Anglo-Irish dramatist and theater critic are: “Bernard Shaw, Pop Culture Critic” (5 September 2012), “Eric Bentley On Bernard Shaw” (3 December 2015), “Re-Reading Shaw” by Kirk Woodward (3 and 18 July, 8 and 23 August, and 2 September 2016), and “Shaw versus Shakes” (8 September 2023).

[As Kirk wrote in a 2013 post, “Shaw knew theater inside and out, and everything he writes about it is worthwhile.”  For “Shaw Sampler,” Kirk’s compiled a selection of brief quotations from Shaw’s theater columns from the Saturday Review that he feels illustrates the breadth of Shaw’s interest in and knowledge of theater.  

[Kirk’s read Shaw’s music criticism, his theater reviews, and much of his other writing as well.  This is one more instance in which Kirk knows something about his subject that’s well worth listening to.  He’s stated recently, however: “I disagree with Shaw on so many things, but he's eminently worth reading—and quoting.”  I think you’ll see why below.]

One of the most interesting periods in the life of the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was the three years (January 1895 through May 1898) he spent as the drama reviewer for the London Saturday Review. (Its official name was The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art.)

In 1894 the Saturday Review hired the flamboyant Frank Harris (1856-1931) as its editor, and Harris hired Shaw, then a music reviewer for the newspaper The Star, as its theater reviewer.

Shaw’s reviews were opinionated and pushy; they were also funny, readable, and grounded in theatrical knowledge, and they became influential and widely discussed.

All the quotations in this article are taken from his drama columns in the Saturday Review. As far as I can tell, only a selection from his drama criticism is still in print. I have a complete collection, Our Theatres in the Nineties by Bernard Shaw in three volumes, published by Constable and Company in 1932 and reprinted, in the edition I own, in 1954.

(The only edition of Shaw’s collected reviews that’s currently in print is Our Theatres in the Nineties Vol. II [Creative Media Partners, 2021; hardback & paperback]. Online sources include Dramatic Οριnιοns and Essays: Volume One [Brentano’s, 1916], Dramatic Οριnιοns and Essays: Volume Two [Brentano’s, 1922], “The Saturday review of politics, literature, science and art” from the HathiTrust Digital Library [with gaps], and “The Saturday Review 1855-1938” from the Internet Archive [all four are PDF’s].)

Shaw was interested in every aspect of theater. He became, of course, one of the leading playwrights of all time, with plays such as Caesar and Cleopatra (first performed in 1899), Major Barbara (1905), Pygmalion (1913), and Saint Joan (1933). (For a run-down of Shaw’s plays. see “Re-Reading Shaw” [3 and 18 July, 8 and 23 August, and 2 September 2016].)

But his activities spread well beyond his own career as a writer; for example, he financed a new building for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (1927), served on its board and lectured there, and donated substantially to the school over a period of several decades.

Just about everything Shaw wrote is quotable, whether or not one agrees with him; he wrote to be provocative, which is one reason he is so quotable. I could have chosen any number of themes for this article, subjects that he returned to frequently: Christmas, elections, fashion trends, dance. . . . In this article I focus on his thoughts on theater itself.

Typically Shaw overstates his opinions, presenting them as universal truths. He doesn’t apologize for this:

In this world if you do not say a thing in an irritating way, you may just as well not say it at all, since nobody will trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them. (“Mary Anderson,” 4 April 1896)

(Mary Anderson [1859-1940] was an American stage actress who went on the London stage in 1883 and stayed for six years. She performed to great acclaim before returning to the United States, where she was met with a hostile reception by the press.  She returned to England, where she died in 1940, at the age of 80. She published the first of her two memoirs, A Few Memories in 1896.)

 He read widely (although he reports that he is a slow reader), and he seems to have remembered everything he read. I am not saying that everything Shaw writes is true or has application today. I do feel his observations are stimulating and often illuminating.

WRITING REVIEWS

Some, including me, make a distinction between drama reviewers and drama critics, with reviewers writing about works when they first appear. Shaw himself, like many others, usually refers to reviewers as “critics,” a word I like to use for writers who see drama in a wider context than the plays themselves.

However, Shaw did see pretty much everything in a wider context. He writes that

Though plays have neither political constitutions nor established churches, they must all, if they are to be anything more than the merest tissue of stage effects, have a philosophy, even if it be no more than an unconscious expression of the author’s temperament. (“Nietzsche in English,” 8 April 1896)

(Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900] was a German philosopher. He was best known for his concepts of the Übermensch [most commonly translated as ‘Superman’] and the declaration that “God is dead,” as well as the works Thus Spoke Zarathustra [1883–1885], Beyond Good and Evil [1886], and The Birth of Tragedy [1872]. Shaw’s Saturday Review column included remarks on the first volume of his collected works [1896].) 

And one of the things that makes his writing remarkable is his combination of immediate and long-range views. These could be political, social, economic, religious, or any other kind of view. They all find their way into his writing.  He knows that reviewers come in all varieties:

Criticisms are like boots: the low-priced ones are scamped [‘perfunctory’ (dated)], mechanical, and without individuality; the high-priced ones are sound, highly finished, and made by hand to the measure of their subject. (“Mr William Archer’s Criticisms,” 13 April 1895)

(William Archer [1856-1924] was a Scottish theater critic, author, and friend of Shaw’s. He was also an early advocate for the “new drama,” particularly the works of Henrik Ibsen.)

He claims, humorously, that he became a reviewer because a writer doesn’t have to dress up:

You, friendly reader, though you buy my articles, have no idea of what I look like in the street – if you did, you would probably take in some other paper. (“The Tailor and the Stage,” 15 February 1896)

He doesn’t pretend he doesn’t have preconceived ideas:

All really fruitful criticism of the drama must bring a wide and practical knowledge of real life to bear on the stage. (“Criticism on the Hustings,” 20 July 1895)

My criticism has not, I hope, any other fault than the inevitable one of extreme unfairness. (“Criticism on the Hustings,” 20 July 1895)

He is aware that he can seem harsh or judgmental, even when he doesn’t intend to:

Those who think the things I say severe, or even malicious, should just see the things I do not say. (“The Case for the Critic-Dramatist,” 16 November 1895)

He understands the “traps” that face a reviewer:

No man, be he ever so accomplished a critic, can effectively look at or listen to plays that he really does not want to see or hear. (“L’Oeuvre,” 30 March 1895) 

Every public man finds that as far as the press is concerned his career divides itself into two parts: the first, during which the critics are afraid to praise him; and the second, during which they are afraid to do anything else. (“The Case for the Critic-Dramatist,” 16 November 1895)

The plays that unman me as a critic are those which are entertaining without being absorbing, and pleasant without being valuable – which keep me amused during an idle hour without engaging my deeper sympathies or taxing my attention. (“Two Plays,” 22 February 1896)

A drama critic is so familiar with brainless sentiment and vulgar tomfoolery that he can stand anything except a masterpiece: a musical critic is so familiar with masterpieces that he can hardly stand anything else. (“A Musical Farce,” 9 January 1897)

Despite his firm opinions, he knows that anything can be criticized by pointing out that it’s not something else, or that it’s left something out. For example,

Any play can be ridiculed by simply refusing to accept its descriptive conventions. (“Satan Saved at Last,” 16 January 1897)

And his experience as a playwright (he had already had five plays produced by the end of his employment at the Saturday Review: Widowers’ Houses [1892], Arms and the Man [1894], Candida [1897], Man of Destiny [1897], and The Devil’s Disciple [1897]) leads him to understand one of the fundamental facts about theater, which many reviewers ignore or can’t handle:

All plays get weakened somewhere when they are performed. (“Mr Pinero on Turning Forty,” 3 April 1897)

(Arthur Wing Pinero [1855-1934] was an English playwright. His best-known plays are The Second Mrs Tanqueray [1893] and Trelawny of the “Wells” [1898].)

ART AND LIFE

Shaw feels that artists must be in touch with the events of their time:

Vital art work comes always from a cross between art and life: art being of one sex only, and quite sterile by itself. (“Chin Chon Chino,” 6 November 1897)

All art is gratuitous; and the will to produce it, like the will to live, must be held to justify itself. (“Mr Heinemann and the Censor,” 2 April 1898)

(William Heinemann [1863-1920] was an English publisher and the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London, founded in 1890.)

When art neglects the world of its time, Shaw feels, the world has a way of crashing in on it:

When civilization becomes effete, the only cure is an irruption of barbarians. (“The Drama Purified,” 23 April 1898)

When art becomes effete, it is realism that comes to the rescue. (“Chin Chon Chino,” 6 November 1897)

There is only one way to defy Time; and that is to have young ideas, which may always be trusted to find youthful and vivid expression. (“Toujours Daly,” 13 July 1895)

(Augustin Daly [1838-1899] was an American drama critic, theater manager, playwright, and adapter who became the first recognized stage director in the United States. He maintained a standing company in New York City and opened Daly’s Theatre there in 1879, and a second one in London in 1893.)

But the current flows both ways: life shapes art, and art can shape life:

The theater is also a response to our need for a sensible expression of our ideals and illusions and approvals and resentments. As such it is bound to affect our ideas, and finally our conduct. (“Quickwit on Blockhead,” 5 June 1897)

The theater is for active workers and alert spirits. (“On Nothing in Particular and the Theatre in General,” 14 March 1896)

The serious drama is perhaps the most formidable social weapon that a modern reformer can wield. (“Mr Heinemann and the Censor,” 2 April 1898)

One might argue with that last statement, feeling that the theater has lost its influence in today’s society. I am not sure that is entirely true; but in any case drama is also found in film, on video, and in electronic games, the influences of all of which are enormous.

Shaw doesn’t idealize artists. He insists that they know their crafts in a practical sense, and that their work be socially useful:

The distinction between artist and tradesman is not a distinction between one man and another, but between two sides of the same man. (“Manchester Still Expiating,” 12 February 1898)

PLAYWRITING

During the time Shaw reviewed plays, he was attempting to have his own plays staged, with middling success. He knew that his plays had their sharp edges:

Every play which is a criticism of contemporary life, must, if it is an honest play, involve a certain struggle with the public. (“The Two Latest Comedies,” 18 May 1895)

Significantly, though, in his reviewing he did not insist that all plays follow the patterns in which he hoped to write, inspired in part by the later, socially-oriented plays of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) that he championed:

For my own part, I do not endorse all Ibsen’s views: I even prefer my own plays to his in some respects; but I hope I know a great man from a little one as far as my comprehension of such things go. (“The New Ibsen Play,” 30 January 1897)

M. Lugne-Poe [Aurélien-Marie Lugné, notable French director, 1869-1940] and his dramatic company called L’Oeuvre [Théâtre de l’Oeuvre (literally, the “Theater of the Work”)] came to us with the reputation of having made Ibsen cry by their performance of one of his works. There was not much in that: I have seen performances by English players which would have driven him to suicide. (“L’Oeuvre,” 30 March 1895)

On the one hand, he rejected the idea that a good play could simply be a tissue of “theatrical” effects: 

. . . the inveterate delusion of the old actor that an audience can be interested in incidents and situations without believing in or caring for the people to whom these incidents and situations occur. If that were so, a shooting-gallery would be as interesting as a battlefield: the mere flash, smoke, and bang of the thing would be enough. But it is not so. (“Mainly About Melodramas,” 3 October 1896)

It seems to me that a play must have a very strong element of interest in it, or a performance with a very strong element of fascination, to induce a rational person to spend the evening so expensively or uncomfortably as it must be spent in a theater. (“Two Plays,” 22 February 1896)

He saw many plays written in ways he disliked, for example the “well-made play” associated with Augustin Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) and Victorien Sardou (1831-1908):

Sardou’s plan of playwriting is first to invent the action of his piece, and then to carefully keep it off the stage and have it announced merely by letters and telegrams. (“Two Bad Plays,” 20 April 1895)

He objected to run-of-the-mill romances and melodramas, seeing them as based on “the cardinal stage convention that love is the most irresistible of all the passions,” and often featuring “that repulsive piece of stale nonsense, the impossible understanding.”

Everybody tells you that [the Romantic movement] began with somebody and ended with somebody else; but all its beginners were anticipated, and it is going on still. (“Two Bad Plays,” 20 April 1895)

Mere incident in a romance is not interesting unless you believe in the reality of the people to whom the incidents occur. (“Plays of the Week,” 11 January 1896)

“I am willing to be redeemed, and even religious,” says the converted romanticist, “if only the business be managed by a pretty woman who will be left in my arms when the curtain falls.” (“Romance in its Last Ditch,” 23 October 1897)

Romance is always, I think, a product of ennui, an attempt to escape from a condition in which real life appears empty, prosaic, and boresome – therefore essentially a gentlemanly product. The man who has grappled with real life, flesh to flesh and spirit to spirit, has little patience with fools’ paradises. (“Lorenzaccio,” 26 June 1897)

Melodramatic stage illusion is not an illusion of real life, but an illusion of the embodiment of our romantic imaginings. (“Boiled Heroine,” 28 March 1896)

And Shaw was happy to acknowledge merit wherever he saw it:

I wish I could persuade not only managers, but all persons concerned with works of art, that a fifth-rate man doing his best will always beat a second-rate man doing less than his best. (“Another Failure,” 8 February 1896)

He didn’t mind that plays were far-fetched, as long as they were consistently far-fetched:

Absurdity is the one thing that does not matter on the stage, provided it is not psychological absurdity. (“Satan Saved at Last,” 16 January 1897)

An audience will always accept a resemblance with eagerness as a freak of nature. (“Plays of the Week,” 11 January 1896)

The psychology and the doctrine can be done without, whereas the imagination, the humor, the sympathetic sense of character, whether blunt and vulgar or acute and subtle, are indispensable. (“The Season’s Moral,” 27 July 1895)

But, whatever the approach the play takes, the work has to be done well: 

The last thing an artist with a strong sense of fun learns to do is to go over his work and resolutely cut out every stroke, however uproariously laughable, that is not perfectly possible and natural. (“Alexander the Great,” 12 June 1897)

(The Alexander of the title of Shaw’s review wasn’t the Macedonian conqueror of the 4th century BCE, but Alexandre Dumas père [1802-1870], French author, famously, of the adventure novels The Three Musketeers [1844] and The Count of Monte Cristo [1844-46].)

Shakespeare, in a much coarser age, could take subjects which were reeking with the vilest stage traditions, and lift them at one stroke to the highest tragic dignity. (“Pinero as He Is Acted,” 19 October 1895)

Shaw, however, demands more of himself than routine work, and applauds when he sees it in the work of others:

There is a sense in which [the plays of Henry Arthur Jones, 1851-1929] are far more faulty than those of most of his competitors, exactly as a row of men is more faulty than a row of lampposts turned out by a first-rate firm. (“The Two Latest Comedies,” 18 May 1895)

Shaw sees hope for the drama in the fact that attitudes toward morality change. The more they change, he believes, the more the drama has to adjust:

It is only when we are dissatisfied with existing masterpieces that we create new ones. (“Chin Chon Chino,” 6 November 1897)

It is the privilege of the drama to make life intelligible, at least hypothetically, by introducing moral design into it, even if that design be only to shew that moral design is an illusion, a demonstration which cannot be made without some counter-demonstration of the laws of life with which it clashes. (“Satan Saved at Last,” 16 January 1897)

[The second installment of this article, to be posted on Monday, 3 November, will include more of Shaw’s comments on playwriting, and some comments on acting as well. 

[There will also be a third part, published on Thursday, 6 November, that is made up of some notes and commentary of the columns quoted in the two earlier parts.  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” will be compiled by Rick On Theater editor Rick.)]

'Musical Theatre For Dummies'

 by Kirk Woodward

[On 16 July 2023, my friend Kirk sent me an email from his family beach vacation down south and told me his daughter, who’s taught theater in the New York City school system and directed it in New York and in her New Jersey home area, had brought Musical Theatre For Dummies with her.  Kirk read the book, which had just been released, and pronounced it “to my surprise . . . remarkably well done.”

 

[In my reply, I tacked on the question of whether the book might be worth a post on Rick On Theater.  Kirk confirmed that it was.  His report on Musical Theatre For Dummies arrived in my inbox on 19 July, before he even got back from the beach.

 

[I had had the idea of writing my own report, from the perspective of a musical-theater devotee who cut his theatrical teeth on Broadway musicals (see my bio-post “A Broadway Baby” [22 September 2010]), to go with Kirk’s article from the point of view of a musical actor, director, and librettist-composer. 

 

[So I held back Kirk’s report so I could read the book and write my own assessment.  My idea was to publish both posts either simultaneously or one right after the other.  Unfortunately, I kept having to put the book down because things kept coming up to interrupt my reading—until I just couldn’t put my friend off any longer.  So now, at long last, here’s Kirk Woodward’s report on Musical Theatre For Dummies.]

 

My daughter Erin, a performer and educator, brought with her to the beach the book Musical Theatre For Dummies (2023), one of the “Dummies” series of books published by John Wiley & Sons, and I read the book during our vacation.  

 

The “For Dummies” series began in 1991 and has maintained enormous popularity. Because there are several related series of the books, it’s hard to say exactly how many have been published, but I have seen a figure of 339 books for the “For Dummies” series itself.  

 

A list of series titles is extremely entertaining, ranging from C++ for Dummies (the series began with computer instructional books) to The Origin of Tolkien’s Middle-earth For Dummies (by Greg Harvey; 2003), with many stops in between. 

 

When I first glanced at Musical Theatre For Dummies my immediate reaction was dismissive. I’ve done theater work for years, I’ve directed a number of musicals, and I feel I have a pretty good background in musical theater. I couldn’t imagine that a general audience book would have much to offer me. 

 

I was (not for the first time) wrong. Musical Theatre For Dummies is a fine source book on the subject. It covers the field thoroughly, and it has taught me a great many things I hadn’t known before. 

 

The “For Dummies” books, in line with their instructional purpose, share a number of features, starting with the typography, which is easy to read, well spaced, and easily followed through its section headings, which are set off from the text and bolded. Icons help emphasize different kinds of information, for example, “tips,” points that are given additional emphasis. 

 

The writing style is slangy and informal, but well focused on the topic at hand. If it’s useful to repeat something at several places in the book, it’s repeated. An introduction tells the reader how to read the book, from several angles; the text itself gives a comfortable feeling of being in good hands.  

 

(The only criticism of the book I’d offer, and it’s extremely minor, is a tendency to use an excessive number of exclamation marks!)  

 

The author of Musical Theatre For Dummies is Seth Rudetsky (b. 1967), who has a remarkably wide and appropriate background for the book. He trained as a musician and played in a number of orchestras for Broadway shows, eventually also becoming a conductor. He has acted, and he co-wrote the off-Broadway musical Disaster! (2013), which received mostly favorable reviews. (Disaster is featured in the 8 July 2016 posting on Rick On Theater called “‘Anatomy of a Broadway Flop’” by Michael Paulson from the New York Times of 23 June 2016.)

 

He also hosts Seth Speaks, a regular show on SIRIUSXM Satellite Radio, as well as a series of live discussions with people in theater. The latter have been the source for the numerous comments on musicals spread liberally through Musical Theatre For Dummies, adding a great deal of interest to the book, since the stories reflect real experiences in the field. 

 

After a useful introduction, the book is divided into four of what it calls “Parts.” The first, “Getting Started with Musical Theatre,” thoroughly lays out what the genre is and isn’t, gives a concise and up-to-date history of the musical, describes its parts, describes where musicals are performed (meaning physical types of theaters, and also countries around the world where musicals are performed), and what attending a musical is like for an audience member. 

 

The second “Part,” The People Who Make Musical Theater Happen,” goes into detail about the people who write musicals (“book” or script writers, composers, lyricists), the people who flesh them out (such as directors, designers, builders), the people who perform them (such as leads, ensemble players, understudies), and the people who support the shows (such as spotlight operators, hair supervisors, and conductors and musicians). 

 

The third “Part,” “The Blood, Sweat, and Tears of Theatre Life,” tracks the process of developing a musical, the details of actors’ lives as the show progresses, the skills required of a performer in a musical, and the details of maintaining a career in musical theater. 

 

The fourth “Part” is characteristic of the “For Dummies” series, “The Part of Tens,” a sort of wrap up of the book’s subject that organizes its materials in lists. In the case of Musical Theatre For Dummies these include “Ten (Plus) Songs You Didn’t Realize Came from Musical Theatre” and “Ten Celebs Who Started in Musical Theatre.” One can see in those chapter titles both the light touch of the book (typical of the “Dummies” series) and the kind of comprehensiveness it aims at. 

 

In each of these sections there were things I didn’t know, often because they come from personal stories. Here is the sort of thing I mean, a story about the actor Chip Zien (b. 1947) when the show Into the Woods (1987, book by James Lapine, score by Stephen Sondheim) was in pre-production and holding auditions. The producer Ira Weitzman  

 

called to tell him he was being considered for the role of the Baker but added that if anyone called and asked him to audition, he should say no! Weitzman felt the creative team didn’t know what they wanted, and if Zien came in, they would find a reason why he wasn’t right. If he didn’t come in, they would just offer it to him. Well, Zien was asked to come in and audition, and he said he wasn’t able to make it. Cut to: They offered him the role! Weitzman knew what he was talking about. 

 

That story is one that perhaps wouldn’t have wide circulation, and there are many of them. The book however also contains a great deal of public content that I didn’t know.  

 

Sometimes books about musicals emphasize what’s often called the “Golden Age” of musicals (which Rudetsky defines generally as shows written between 1940 and 1960). That happens to be the period I’m most familiar with, but Rudetsky shines the spotlight on more recent shows as well, so I now have a wider perspective on the field as it is today. 

 

There’s a thin line, I’d say, between clarification and trivia, and I find plenty of both in Musical Theatre For Dummies. Here’s a sample: 

 

Waitress (2016) is notable not only because it was a big success of the decade, but also because composer/lyricist Sara Barielles wound up taking over the leading lady role, thereby being one of the few creators to star in their own show. Yes, Comden and Green did it in the ’40s in On the Town [1944], but it hasn’t been done that much since. (Most notable, Sting took on a role for a limited time in his musical The Last Ship [2014], Peter Allen starred in Legs Diamond [1988], John Cameron Mitchell starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch [2014], and of course, Lin Manuel-Miranda has starred in two of his musicals [In the Heights, 2008; Hamilton, 2015].) 

 

That’s not a particularly consequential piece of musical theater history, it’s a sort of throwaway, but it shows the depth of information in the book and it certainly might help one win a trivia contest. 

 

For another example, I was fascinated to find the answer to a question I never thought to ask: how are orchestra members of Broadway shows supposed to dress? Here’s Rudeksky’s answer (he was, you’ll remember, a “pit musician” for a number of shows): 

 

Because the audience can often see into the pit, the musicians are told to wear black so they don’t distract from the stage. 

 

However, not all black outfits are deemed acceptable. Each orchestra pit has their own requirement. I could wear a black T-shirt in many shows I played in the orchestra for, but at The Phantom of the Opera, my black shirt had to have a collar. #Fancy 

 

On the flip side was The Full Monty. The score had a pop feel and because the music wasn’t highfalutin, we were allowed to wear whatever we wanted. I’d be in that pit in a tank top and shorts! I loved coming right off the street in whatever I was wearing and planting it in the pit. 

 

Again, not consequential, but informative. But as repeatedly happens in the book, Rudeksky continues by adding a detail that might easily be overlooked: “For your information, one of the things I don’t love about playing in a pit is having to change into a black outfit.” Where would orchestra members change their clothes? They wouldn’t have their own dressing rooms in the theater!  

 

This kind of detail put an end to the skepticism about the book I’d had before I’d opened it, but if it hadn’t, the following would have. This paragraph appears in a section about acting schools and training: 

 

Just make sure you don’t go to the kind of acting teacher who thinks they have to break you down to build you back up again. And avoid the know-it-all Svengali who won’t allow discussions to happen. It’s best to remember: if you’re feeling bad about yourself after a few classes, this isn’t the right teacher for you.

 

I have said exactly the same things to every acting class I’ve ever taught, and they are crucially excellent, important, even vital pieces of advice. Acting teachers come in all types. Some are helpful; not all are right for a particular person; some are fakes, crooks, or worse. In case of doubt, get out. 

 

I could continue to cite examples of things I’ve learned from this book – the difference, for example, between the Outer Critics Circle Awards and the Drama Desk Awards (the Outer Critics write for newspapers outside New York, as well as for electronic platforms, the Drama Desk is more traditional New York “theatre critics, editors, journalists, and broadcasters”). 

 

Or the box seats one sees in older theaters – is there something particularly wonderful about them for a contemporary audience? 

 

Today, box seats may still seem to exude power and privilege, but on a practical level, they usually aren’t constructed at the best angle to experience a performance compared to orchestra seats. Basically, one half of the stage is blocked so you miss a lot of the action, but at least your amazing outfit gets to be admired, right? 

 

It’s difficult to stop giving examples from this enjoyable, easy to read book. I’ve learned a great deal from Musical Theatre For Dummies and urge anyone to read it who wants to fill in gaps in their theatrical knowledge, to enjoy the company of a friendly theatrical companion, or to satisfy a completist urge.  It offers all three, quite a bargain at the price. 

 

[I have a number of posts on ROT that touch on different aspects of musical theater.  Some are by other authors, including Kirk, and there a quite a few from Allegro, the magazine of the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 802, the union that represents most of the pit orchestra musicians that play the Broadway shows. 

 

[Several are my own posts, and the most pertinent here is “A Broadway Baby,” an autobiographical narrative outlining my introduction to the love of theater.  As I allude above, my life as a theatergoer began with musicals.

 

[My theater life really began with musical theater.  Actually, I think my first experience with the musical stage was opera: my parents took me to a performance of Gian Carlo Menotti’s one-act Amahl and the Night Visitors.  I must have been about 8 or 9; Amahl is a Christmas story, so it would have been at Christmastime, which is my birthday.  I remember the performance, but I have no recollection of who produced it or where it was presented.  (I do remember that after the show, I got the autograph of the young singer who played Amahl—the first of only two autographs I ever collected.)

 

[I saw a number of kinds of theater in my early days, including Shakespeare (a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the outdoor Carter Barron Amphitheatre in Rock Creek Park—I’m a Washingtonian), but what I first fell in love with was Gilbert and Sullivan, including performances by the world-renowned D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

 

[Soon, however, I was seeing Broadway musicals at the National Theatre—either shows on the way to Broadway because Washington was on the try-out circuit, or on their post-première National Tours.  In “A Broadway Baby,” I wrote of this time in my life:

 

I grew up loving what used to be called musical comedy. . . .  I literally grew up on that music—and when I was little, I knew (and could actually sing) all the words to all the songs.  I’d actually come out of the theater singing the score.  [M]y first Broadway experiences, when I came to visit my grandparents [in New York City], were musicals.  Fiorello! was my very first show on Broadway; I saw My Fair Lady a little later, but it still had the original cast. . . .  Those great performances I saw as a boy have become enduring: Harold Hill is always Robert Preston, Maria von Trapp is always Mary Martin—not [Julie] Andrews, by the way; besides Guenevere and Liza Doolittle, she's always Cinderella (from the original 1957 television broadcast)—Fiorello is always Tom Bosley, Don Quixote is always Richard Kiley, Pseudolus and Hysterium are always Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford, J. Pierrepont Finch and Bud Frump are always Robert Morse and Charles Nelson Reilly, Fagin is always Clive Revill, Fanny Brice is always Barbra Streisand, Charity Hope Valentine is always Gwen Verdon; and, of course, Mrs. Lovett will always be Angela Lansbury.

 

[For years, I kept a mental list of the best individual performances I’d seen.  It included both non-musical and musical performances, but the musical ones included Zero Mostel in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (which I saw at the National where it premièred in 1962), Gwen Verdon in Sweet Charity (1966), Ben Vereen in Pippin (1972), and Virginia Capers in Raisin (1973). 

 

[I also had favorite actors whose overall stage work I just liked a lot, even if they didn’t fit on my List of Great Performances.  I first saw Jerry Orbach in Carnival! (1961) with Anna Maria Alberghetti and he became a special favorite of mine.  Also in that cast was another favorite: Kaye Ballard, who sang the maddest love song on any Broadway stage: “Always Always You.”  Her character was a magician’s assistant and she sang of her devotion to him while in a box into which Marco the Magnificent was thrusting swords!  An image like that tends to stick with you.  

 

[Other favorites included Kay Medford, Stubby Kaye, and Howard da Silva—I tended to go for the character actors, it seems.  They all had personalities that shone through in all their appearances and there are lines I can still hear them saying, like Kay Medford: “Don’t worry about the coat.  Three mink stoles you’ll have when the train pulls out.”  (That’s from 1960’s Bye Bye Birdie in which she played Albert Peterson’s (Dick Van Dyke) mother, Mae.  She was lying across railroad tracks at the time.)

 

[Now, a couple of comments about some of what Kirk reports above.  In a piece of advice Rudetsky offers to acting students, he rightly warns them that “if you’re feeling bad about yourself after a few classes, this isn’t the right teacher for you.”  Kirk says he’s told students the same thing in every class he’s taught.  So have I.  I’ve heard some scary stories from students on various studios and conservatories, though I’ve been fortunate not to have experienced any myself.

 

[But I’d add an additional admonition.  Running into a “Svengali,” as Rudentsky labels them, who makes a student “feel bad” isn’t the only bad omen that should make a student look for another teacher.  This, I did experience myself—twice, when I just starting out.

 

[I’d gotten out of the army in February 1974; I’d been overseas and returned to the States with the idea of training for the stage.  I’d been accepted at a well-known conservatory in New York City for the fall term.  After taking some time off, I decided to come to New York for the summer and take some classes—my first professional training experiences—at a famous studio, on the recommendation of my former college director and his actress wife.

 

[I didn’t know any of the faculty at the studio, of course, though many had names I recognized and some I’d even seen on stage or in films.  I picked classes that seemed like good starting places, and chose teachers that fit the schedule I was forming—but it was all pigs in a poke.  I lucked out, it turned out, and most of the teachers I chose remained mentors, teachers, and guides for years after. 

 

[But one teacher, whom I actually liked, turned out to be a problem.  He wasn’t threatening or controlling, and not only did I enjoy the work I did in his class—it was acting technique—but he obviously liked what my scene partner and I did because he kept inviting us to repeat our work in his other class.  I was immensely complimented.  (He even started to recommend some auditions for Off-Off-Broadway shows he thought I ought to go to, though I hadn’t planned on auditioning yet.  My practical experience at that point was only college and amateur productions.)

 

[The problem was that I had no idea what the teacher was trying to impart to us.  What were we suppose to be learning from the exercises and scene adjustments he was giving us.  They were fun to do, but I was at a loss about what his point was.  (He was a working actor with film credits and a current gig on Broadway in a comedy in which I went to see him.  He had one of those parts that has a single, boffo scene in the middle of the play that actually steals the show, and he was terrific!)

 

[I never confronted the teacher about my confusion.  I never considered that I had the right to, or that it was even possible.  I’m not even sure I’d have had the words with which to ask the questions.  I was a rank amateur not just in the business, but in the training aspect of the business.

 

[I left the studio at the end of the summer session to start at the conservatory.  Many of my studio teachers, particularly my scene study teacher, who would become a guide and mentor, advised me not to make the switch.  I stuck with my plan, however, because I didn’t see any reason not to, and that college director had recommended me to the conservatory, to whose board he’d been appointed (and whose director had been a grad school classmate), and it to me.

 

[Well, the school turned out to be a bad fit for a couple of reasons.  One was, after a summer at the studio, I’d apparently learned too much, about the art, but also how to study the art.  The school was also geared to a junior college level student, so my classmates were almost all 19- and 20-year-olds, while I was 28, a college graduate, and a veteran of five years in the army.  (I’d been a military intelligence officer having just returned from a 2½-year tour in West Berlin as a counterintelligence Special Agent.  None of that, though, had been the topic of any conversations.)  I was older than some of the teachers.

 

[Nonetheless, I applied myself to the work, using what I’d been learning over the summer as a guide for how to comport myself in the classes and rehearsals.  Things seemed to be going along nicely in all respects, except that I began to see the same problem that I had with the acting tech teacher at the studio developing with one of the class’s instructors at the conservatory—I couldn’t see what he was getting at.

 

[The man was a well-known actor, veteran of many film and TV roles and several stage performances.  I approached him after class one day and asked if we could talk.  He agreed and we set a tentative appointment.  The next day, however, I was summoned to the director’s office.  I had no idea of the reason, but when I got there, the director told me that I was being asked to leave the school at the end of the term.  I asked why, and the answer he gave me was that I asked too many questions.  He said I didn’t take enough on faith.  I was flabbergasted.

 

[He didn’t mention the teacher with whom I’d asked to talk, and he wasn’t in the room.  I hadn’t had any problem of any degree with anyone else at the school, so I assumed he was the reason for the dismissal.  He must have taken my request to talk as some sort of challenge, though I hadn’t made, or even implied, any.

 

[So, my addendum to Rudetsky’s and Kirk’s advice about suitable acting teachers is, in addition to being made to feel uncomfortable, also consider being made to feel confused.  I went back to the studio and then followed my scene study teacher to a new MFA program at Rutgers that was just starting up where she’d be heading the acting program.

 

[One last comment, one that’s somewhat less dramatic.  Rudetsky states that box seats in theaters aren’t constructed at the best angle to experience a performance.  He’s absolutely right.  Except, in my experience, in one instance. 

 

[My mother was coming to New York for a visit in the spring of 1999.  I don’t remember what day she was arriving, but she’d be here for Sunday, 9 May, which was Mother’s Day.  Her birthday had been the previous 7 April, and I hadn’t gotten to Washington to be with her that year, and she’d been a widow for three years after looking after my father’s final years with Alzheimer’s.  I wanted to do something special for her visit.

 

[A new restaurant had opened on Restaurant Row in the Theatre District in 1997.  It was called FireBird, a Russian-themed restaurant decorated like an upper-class mansion of 1912 and a menu to match.  I made a dinner reservation—without telling Mom where—and bought tickets for The Lion King at that day’s matinee—also a secret.

 

[Both my parents were theater buffs.  Mom’s family had seen Carousel on its second night (which happened to be her younger sister’s 18th birthday) and on one of their early dates, Dad had taken my mom to Oklahoma!  When I revealed where we were going, Mom asked, “Isn’t than a children’s show?”  I explained that I wanted her to see the costumes, masks, and puppets Julie Taymor had designed for the stage version of the Disney animated movie.

 

[The show had been running for a year-and-a-half already and tickets were scarce.  All I could get for that night were box seats down near the stage on the house-right side.  Ordinarily, as Rudetsky warned, these would be terrible seats for a show.  But, as it turned out—for our purposes—they were the best seats in the house.  So much of Lion King is performed in the aisles and around the auditorium, and even in the boxes, that from seats in the house, a theatergoer would miss a lot of the spectacle.  We got a bird’s-eye view of all of Taymor’s creations!

 

[Mom quickly forgot the kiddie-show narrative, and we reveled in the visual spectacle at our feet.  For months, Mom didn’t stop talking to her friends about this marvelous theater experience.  The next year, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington housed an exhibit of Taymor’s work, Julie Taymor: Playing With Fire (16 November 2000-4 February 2001), and Mom insisted that a group of her friends accompany her to the show to experience this fantastic artist’s work.]