the Bard with all piety, does not hold magnificent staging and the employment of every art of modern stagecraft to be incompatible with a serious presentation of the master's works. And if the practice of animating our own decadent stage to a larger appreciation of the national treasure which the Swan of Avon has left it has fostered the belief that the Shakespeare of the German stage most nearly corresponds to that of "The Lord Chamberlayne hys Servantes," it is well to contradict this legend most emphatically in this place.

II.

Audi et alteram partem. So general has become the tendency of the modern German stage to present Shakespeare with the same degree of historical accuracy and lavish display in the mounting that a strong movement is on foot to revert to simple conditions, not perhaps to the primitive simplic ity of the Elizabethan stage, but at least the conditions which will prevent the stage-manager's art from being regarded as the indispensable aid of the actor.

In the introductory note to Mr. Sidney Lee's essay, referred to at the opening of this article, the translator, Herr Jocza Savits, known in Germany as the initiator of the Shakespeare Reformbühne at Munich, and as one of the most untiring champions of the "ideal stage," says: "Mr. Sidney Lee remarks that in Berlin, Vienna, and in all the chief German-speaking towns of Europe Shakespeare's plays are produced constantly and in all their variety, for the most part, in conditions which are directly antithetical to those prevailing in the West-End theatres of London. This can only refer to representations of Shakespeare's works on the German stage which took place long before 1900. Because for a considerable time leading and prominent

theatres in Berlin and Vienna, as well as in other cities-one might almost say, throughout Germany-with the exception of the former ShakespeareBühne at Munich, have become converted to principles of staging which Mr. Sidney Lee energetically combats. Indeed, it may be said of recent years, and approximately during the past decades, that Shakespeare is mounted in Vienna and Berlin, and also in other cities theatrically prominent, absolutely after the pattern of the London West-End theatres-that is to say, with every device of the most lavish and expensive scenery. It may be admitted that on the German stage it is done with intelligence and taste; nay, frequently with exquisite ingenuity. Yet these attributes cannot rectify what to my mind is a wrong system. It is therefore to be joyfully acclaimed that, for all this, the German stage is beginning to show signs of a new movement favorable to the reform and simplification of scenery."

It will be noted that the German critic does not even except, like the writer, the subsidized theatres from his charges. But these houses, besides occupying, as has been shown, a different plane from the independent theatres, do not, for all the richness and display of their stage settings, take liberties with Shakespeare. The other theatres are becoming increasingly prone to take their lead from the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin, against which the charge of tampering with Shakespeare can be sustained with equal justice, to my mind, as against our English stage.

We are continually being told that the difference between the German and the English theatre-goer is that the former goes to the play for his instruction, the latter for his amusement. It is doubtful whether this axiom applies with as much force as

formerly as far as the Teuton is concerned.

The modern German resembles his country in so far that he is a creature in being. The state of flux in which he lives extends also to his relations with the theatre. Formerly, it is true, he went to the play in a spirit some what approximating to that of the ancient Greeks, seeking pabulum for his intellect, matter to reason and ponder over in his logical German mind. Yet German theatrical tradition says nothing of his being content to forego the aid of stagecraft to complete the illusion of the theatre. The introduction of Shakespeare to the German stage, indeed, occurred at a moment when the development of scenic magnificence was at its height. (One excepts the visit to Germany in Shakespeare's day of those English players who passed across the stage of history for a moment to be lost for ever in the "wings" of time.)

Dr. Georg Altman, of the Mannheim Court Theatre, says: "Even at the end of the seventeenth century the theatre was lavish of its scenic wonders, and tried to be a greater stagesetter than Mother Nature herself: nixies and devils, indeed the whole heavens and the jaws of Hell, soared across the stage, and when a prince deigned to occupy a box an eagle would fly down from the proscenium and present him with a programme (without advertisements!)."

Although modern dramatic art was in its infancy, scenic art in opera had been brought to Germany a hundred years before Friedrich Ludwig Schröder's versions introduced Shakespeare to the German playgoer. The Hamburg Opera House, which was the scene of those scenic marvels described by Dr. Georg Altman, and which had enjoyed, as such, a wide reputation for decades, was the first permanent theatre to be erected in

Germany, and was Shakespeare's dramatic cradle. Schröder's acting edi tions of Shakespeare were doubtless hewn to taste, to lend themselves as much to the prevailing love of scenic display as to suit the primitive dramatic demands of the contemporary theatre audience.

Although the writings of Schlegel and Lessing were able soon after this to bring public opinion round to a correct appreciation of the English dramatist's works, they were never able to enforce the adoption of Elizabethan stage conditions. And that the aid of scenery and stage-craft to heighten the illusion was congenial to German sen. timent was overwhelmingly proved a century later by the rapturous acclamation of the famous Meining players, who presented Shakespeare with a perfection of acting, scenery and stage management which the world had never seen, and who, in their subsequent triumphal tour of the chief European capitals, left their mark wherever they appeared. Their influence is traceable, more or less, in every Shakespeare production of the present day, and is particularly noticeable at the Berlin Theatre Royal. For it was but yesterday that Ludwig Barnay, the memorable Mark Antony of the Meininger, resigned the reins of management at the Königliches Schauspielhaus, and Paul Lindau, erstwhile stage manager of the troupe and Duke George's faithful aide, is at present the Dramaturg, and a very active one, for all his years.

III.

"Was ist der deutsche Rhein?" asks the song, and "What is the German Shakespeare?" is a question which the above reflections may prompt. Allow an English playgoer, who loves our English Shakespeare, and who has the interests of our English stage truly at heart, to reply that the German

Shakespeare is what its name implies: a German adaptation of the English poet, very pious, very intelligent, very artistic, but standing to the spirit of the Master not even as close as the sterling German translation stands to the English text.

A Shakespeare play in German is the highest tribute to Shakespeare's greatness which the stage has probably ever paid. In the presence of these German figures one realizes, perhaps for the first time, that Shakespeare created, not characters or types, but human beings, who, though denuded of their nationality, preserve their personality intact, and offer the same opportunities to the good actor to excel and to the bad actor to fail as the parts do on their native stage.

Shakespeare came to the Germans, to quote their own pregnant phrase, "ein unbeschriebenes Blatt." They had not the English theatrical tradition, verbal and written, to go upon; they knew nothing of the requirements of the "platform stage" for which the dramatist wrote, and accordingly they set about the interpretation of this dramatic meteor in their own thorough German way. The critiques of Mr. Beerbohm Tree's performances of Shakespeare in Berlin made fascinating reading, for there we had, in black and white, the full confession of the principles which guide the presentation of Shakespeare on the German stage.

The declamatory style of the English Shakespearean actor appeared forced and stilted to them, wotting nothing of the acting conditions of the Elizabethan stage, when the actor spoke his lines to the semi-circle of a horseshoe auditorium. Such interpolated scenes as the return of Antony in "Antony and Cleopatra," or the game of bowls in "Richard II." shocked the German critics as much as they do our English Shakespeare

orthodoxy, and the incidental music played from in front of the stage irritated them furiously. In "Twelfth Night" they voted Malvolio and his tormentors too grotesque, their humor too restrained and quiet. For the German Andrew Aguecheeks, Toby Belches and Festes roar and bang through their parts, and thus throw the delicate comedy of the Malvolio scenes out of all perspective. Such criticism as this makes one wonder what manner of strange incongruity Shakespeare's masque became when garnished with the nixies and devils of the Hamburg Opera House.

The fact is simply that the German accepts Shakespeare as a German poet, and acts his plays unhampered by tradition other than that of the stage "business." The speeches are treated almost purely as dialogue, with the result that, while the dramatic effect is enhanced, the beauty of the language is very often missed. Take, as an instance, the opening scene of "Hamlet." In the production of the tragedy at the Berlin Theatre Royal the most is made of the dramatic conditions in which the ghost appears. One sees the snow-covered ramparts looking over a fitful, moaning sea, which, with its bold sweep of skyline, somehow, perhaps intentionally, suggests the Lange Linie along the harbor at Copenhagen. A tower, a huge amorphous mass, stands out black against the star-lit firmament, with a twinkling eye of light denoting the castle hall where Claudius keeps wassail. All is cold, silent and melancholy, like a presage of the tragedy to be enacted. The guards and Horatio converse in hoarse, hurried whispers, which are interrupted by the apparition of the dead king. The eloquence of Horatio's speeches goes by the board, but the horror of the situation is increased,

Following out this idea, the Ger

mans pay what to us would appear an exaggerated, almost laughable, attention to the historical accuracy of costumes and staging. One does not ask that Hamlet should be played, as Garrick played the rôle, in Court dress, but the other extreme should also be avoided. In "Hamlet" at the Berlin Theatre Royal the scenery is almost barbaric in its splendor. Roman architecture, gaudy arras, huge oaken furniture, and stone or bare wood floors seem to suggest that the property-master has gone back to the era of Charlemagne for his inspiration. Arthur Vollmer, the Theatre Royal's truly excellent comedian, gives as Polonius a perfect study of a cringing courtier, subtle, hypocritical, yielding, with a make-up resembling Richelieu. It is a gem of impersonation, but I doubt whether it is Polonius. Again, in "Twelfth Night" the same comedian's Malvolio is a pale-faced, sad-looking wight, a kind of Shakespearean Chadband, the interpretation probably being based on somebody's rather farfetched theory that in "Twelfth Night" Master Will was having a dig at the Puritans, who were just coming into notoriety in his day. And in connection with the same play it is comical to find a German critic gravely chiding Olivia for not being sufficiently "southern" in temperament, on the ground that the scene of the play is laid in Illyria! As well impeach Dogberry for not dancing tarantellas as beseems a Sicilian constable! In the Kaiser's “Sardanapalus” Assyrian soldiers prance gravely down the stage in faultless "Paradeschritt"; one can equally well imagine the archers in "König Heinrich der Fünfte" storming the breach in the goose-step.

No less an authority than Sir Charles Wyndham has expressed the opinion, on re-visiting the Berlin theatres after the lapse of a score of years, that the Germans are still the

finest character actors in the world, but cannot play ladies and gentlemen. The truth of this dictum is naturally most apparent in modern comedy, but Shakespeare also affords valuable opportunities for corroborating its exactness. His plays, of course, contain the standard rôles of the character actor, and one of the chief attractions of witnessing Shakespeare in German is the masterly use the character act ors make of their chances and the infinite variety of studies which such rôles as Malvolio, Polonius, Autolycus, or Falstaff give scope to. Mr. Tree, who is as successful in character parts as he is a failure in heroic rôles, was thus signally ill-advised in drawing wholly on Shakespeare for the repertoire of his Berlin visit. The German playgoer is spoilt for character parts, and the enthusiastic appre ciation of the distinguished appearance and manners of the English jeunes premiers of Mr. Tree's troupe showed that the Germans are conscious of the shortcomings of their native actors in this regard.

In the representation of female rôles, the modern German stage is equally unlucky. I am not referring to the great tragic characters like Lady Macbeth, but to those sweet women, the Portias, the Beatrices, the Rosalinds, in the portrayal of whom our Shakespeare is at his best. The German actress is apt to have a heavy touch, and it is the fate of many of Shakespeare's most deftly drawn female characters to pale into insignificance before the bright light of the character rôles in such comedies as "Twelfth Night" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream." When a German critic, writing of "Twelfth Night," says: "I must confess that, despite the lyrics of the language, these Illyrian lovers interest me as little as the lovers in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,'" he is undoubtedly expressing the verdict

of the large majority of German theatre-goers. Yet it is interesting to note that the brilliant success in Berlin of a young English actress of Mr. Tree's company, Miss Alice Crawford, was based on her interpretation of the not particularly grateful rôle of Olivia in "Twelfth Night." For her stately dignity de grande dame, her intelligent exposition of Shakespeare's lines and her sympathetic acting lifted the part, in a manner that was a revelation to the German audiences, far above its status of foil to Malvolio's antics, to which in Germany it is habitually relegated.

It is in the ensemble, however, that the German Shakespeare impresses. Those minor parts in which, as Mr. Sidney Lee says, the highest abilities of the actor and actress can find scope for employment are, save for the shortcomings to which allusion has just been made, worthily and carefully filled, with the result that the play in its entirety is brought to a harmonious pitch of excellence.

IV.

Reference has been made to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and it is with a glance at the influence which this pioneer of the modern German stage is having on the presentation of Shakespeare in Germany that these remarks may be brought to a close.

The Deutsches Theater is under the direction of Herr Max Reinhardt, an enterprising young manager, who. chiefly owing to the daring originality of his ideas on staging, has within a period of five years become the mosttalked-of theatrical manager in Ger many and Austria. He has just been distinguished by the commission to superintend the Festspiele of the Künstlertheater at Munich next summer. In its Shakespeare productions the Deutsches Theater is the worst offender against the theories of Herr

Jocza Savits. Max Reinhardt believes in utilizing every device which his own original artistic mentality and the progress of modern stage-craft can combine to produce, for heightening the dramatic illusion in the presentation of Shakespeare. He introduced the turn-table stage to the German theatre, a device by which, while one segment of the movable stage is presented to the audience, scenes can be set on the other six, the circular table being divided into seven. His staging of Shakespeare reveals, however-and in this the Shakespeare archaists will find consolation-the modernizing process which has been going on in his mind. Although but a few years lie between the Deutsches Theater version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the production of "King Lear" there the other day, all the vista of time between the Hamburg Opera House and the Gordon Craig "ideal stage" separates the two productious in respect of staging.

The first Shakespeare "Neueinstudierung" at the Deutsches Theater, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," with fairies and elves and fireflies and dancing à la His Majesty's Theatre. was a brilliant success. It was conventional, discreet, and extremely popular, and advertised itself conveniently by the discussion which this innovation aroused in Shakespeare circles in Germany. "The Merchant of Venice" followed, and a new Shylock, conceived on Sir Henry Irving's study of the character, raised the production above the niveau of its predecessor or of its successors up to now. The scenery was beautiful in the extreme, with Venetian canals and bridges and effects of sunlight and sea. The Portia was execrable.

"Romeo and Juliet" followed, but it was not until he staged "A Winter's Tale" that Max Reinhardt became