THE THEATRE.
"THE PRETENDERS" AT THE HAYMARKET. SINCE the Elizabethan age the chronicle-play, in spite of being peculiarly English in its origin, has been almost entirely neglected by our serious dramatists, though it is true that greets such as Tennyson and Swinburne have attempted and failed to grapple with its difficulties. The whole trend of European drama has, indeed, been in the opposite direction. If we begin to inquire why this is so, we shall find ourselves discussing the history of the growth of the "well-made" play, and of the demand for the observation of the " unities." This -question in its turn involves the history of the structural development of the theatre. As a general rule dramatists write plays to be acted in existing theatres; and it is only a very exceptional Wagner who can get a theatre built to suit his plays. So, if we ask why no plays were written in the nineteenth century on the model of Henry IY., it will almost be a sufficient answer to say that no theatre existed then in which they could have been acted. The chronicle-play is from its -very nature the antithesis of the Aristotelian play, for it demands a number of short, rapidly suc- ceedirg scenes; and until quite recently almost the only theatre which had the physical means of meeting this demand was the popular playhouse of Tudor England. It remains to be seen whether the revival of the apron stage, with its possibilities of rapid changes of scene, may not lead to the revival of some kind of chronicle-play.
The production of Ibsen's Pretenders at the Haymarket Theatte will at least serve to remind us what. an interesting thing a chronicle-play might be. It was written just fifty years ago, when Ibsen was thirty-five, and while he was still in many respects immature. The influence of Scribe was full upon him, and induced him to make every effort to lop the disordered limbs. of the saga upon the Procrustean bed of the " unities." In this be inevitably failed; the time of the action extends over twenty- two years, its place is altered eight times, and one of the principal characters dies in the middle of the third act. (It is interesting to notice, in connexion with what was said above as to the physical difficulties of presenting the chronicle-play in a nineteenth-century theatre, that even in the mitigated shape given to it by Ibsen it made more demands than the Haymarket Theatre could meet. The fifth act in the text is divided into three scenes ; but the stage mechanism could only allow of two without an intoler- ably long interval. Accordingly part of the first scene was grafted on to the fourth act, and the play suffered considerably from the change.) But it would be absurd to suggest that The Pretenders is a chronicle-play in anything more than its externals. As we have said, these externals suggest that a good modern chronicle-play might be written. Ibsen, however, • was the last person to write one. His genius was essentially antagonistic to diffuseness, and its great endeavour was always to be packing thoughts up like sardines in a tin. To be successfully diffuse is, on the other hand, the secret of writing a good chronicle-play. The _Pretenders, in so far as it is a chronicle-play, is of no particular interest ; its really wonderful features are those -which it has in common with the dramatist's later and more -characteristic plays. The symbolism which clearly underlies the whole struggle between the two pretenders to the Crown of Norway is pure Ibsen ; and so are the pretenders them- selves—the priggish, efficient, successful Hakon, and the speculative, un-self-confident, incompetent Skule. The scene in which the latter asks for advice and help from Jatgeir the Skald might have come almost bodily from one of the so-called social dramas : "I must have some one by- me," says Skule, " who sinks his own will utterly in mine--a who believes in me unflinchingly, who will cling close to me in good hap and ill, who lives only to shed light and warmth over my life, and must die if I fall." "Buy yourself a dog, my lord," is Jatgeir's bitter retort.
Unfortunately in the Haymarket production the most Ibsenish aspect of the play tends to be lost. The Pretenders, to put it shortly, is there treated as if it were by Shakespeare. In the first place the text is rearranged and cut, partly in order to guarantee a really good "curtain" for each act— actors always understand these things so much betteik than dramatists—and partly in order to save time. Time must be saved because, since the play is treated as Shakespeare, all the characters have to talk at the Shakespearean pace, -which averages at perhaps a word every five seconds. The diffi- culties of the actors are, it must be confessed, by no means diminished by the unfortunate diction (full of " Ay's " and "'twill be's " and " mayhap's ") chosen by Mr. Archer for his in many ways excellent translation. Finally, the mounting of the play is thoroughly in the grand style of realism and archaeological exactitude. We are informed that Mr. S. H. Sime, who designed the clothes and scenery, has made a special study of thirteenth-century Scandinavia. The layman is forced to admit that he is unable to distinguish the result from Wagnerian opera. How many times does he remember having seen Sieglinde give the exhausted Siegmund a draught of wine in the horn that Dagfinn the Peasant drinks out of to-day ! How often has he seen Gunther dressed in the terra- cotta-coloured cloak (is it made of rep?) in which Mr. Laurence Irving is arrayed! It is scarcely a fortnight since he witnessed at Covent Garden in the third act of Tristan the very image of the "realistic" fight between the Birchkgs and the Wolf- skins ! But such criticisms must not interfere with our gratitude for the spirited action of the management of the Haymarket in giving us the opportunity of seeing The
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