THE AUTHOR OF "HAMLET" WAS AN ACTOR

Why Shakespeare's Plays Could Only Have Been Written by a Player

Arnold Daly

A DINNER arranged by a friend, with an outrageous appetite for discussion, brought me, a few nights ago, face to face with an ardent advocate of the Baconian theory. He talked long and earnestly. The fascination which mediocre reasoning always superinduces in me—that is, when it is consistent and never-ending—held me spellbound for almost an hour. Although I knew well the futility of trying to plant any seed in such barren soil, I bravely cut into the ivory and only admitted my failure when the poor, blunted knife snapped indignantly in two, preferring death to such a hopeless expedition.

Hazlitt once remarked that if you want to reach the summit of everything which is lofty you must read Shakespeare, and if you want to sound the depths of everything which is ridiculous you must hear the arguments of his commentators.

Within the past week I have read two more articles—by college professors—on the same theme. And only weariness, that insufferable weariness which boredom alone can bring, and which is invariably bred in me by the reasoning of college professors when discussing creative work, leads me back again to this timeworn, age-long question.

The reasoning of my Baconian friend at dinner is almost too feeble to quote here, but I fear it is necessary, for it is practically the reasoning of all Baconian theorists, to wit: that it was impossible for Shakespeare—the humble player—to have acquired the education necessary to write these plays; that such erudite comedies and dramas could not have been written by a mere illiterate actor; that their literary beauty, knowledge, and scholarship could only have been born in the brain of a scholar, nobleman, man of the world, etc., etc.

In short the gentleman proved—a little tediously—that a scholar is a scholar and that two and two make four.

In the first place I must admit that I do not know what a scholar really is. William Archer once disclaimed being one, with a rather grateful note in his voice; but had he thought the peculiar product worthy of analysis, he might have discovered that a scholar is usually a mediocre brain crammed full of bits of helter-skelter knowledge, with no ability to grasp, in a really big way, any subject which has to do with a creative work of art. I don't for a moment mean to decry scholarship. It is a splendid thing, but at best it only polishes the diamond. In creative work it has achieved nothing. As to two and two making four— that is perfectly absurd. As a matter of fact two and two make five, when Shakespeare—or Goethe, or Wagner—cracks his whip.

AND now I crave for the following point the reader's grave consideration. It would have been a much more remarkable thing for Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor, to have possessed the knowledge of the technique of the stage which these plays everywhere betray than it would have been for William Shakespeare, the actor, to have possessed the culture and scholarship needed to write them.

Knowledge of medicine, law, botany, and history can be gained by reading. Knowledge of the stage, on the other hand, like knowledge of conjuring, can only be had from long experience and practice.

For it must be clear to all enlightened playgoers that the literary quality in these plays is not the quality which makes them great, as plays, all the professors in Christendom to the contrary, notwithstanding.

Shakespeare's plays are still produced and enjoyed, not because their author was a great poet, but because he was a great master of the drama. Indeed, as a poet, the author of the plays is often turgid, labored, and obscure. Matthew Arnold has somewhere said that, considered as a model of poetic style, Shakespeare is by no means one of the best in the language, but often one of the worst.

It is the most difficult thing in the world to prove these points to the layman's mind. No genuine student of play construction, however, requires any proof of them whatever. Ibsen would understand them at once and betray genuine surprise that anyone could doubt them. And so would Strindberg and so would any master craftsman of the drama. But no professor, or lecturer, or dilettante versifier could ever grasp them, and no amount of explanation could convince them. But for those who can smell a complicated stage "situation," or for those who have any instinctive genius for the theatre at all, a few instances of Shakespeare's quality of drama will be sufficient to illustrate the point I hope to prove.

LET us, for instance, remember that Mercutio is killed, not so much by Tybalt's skillful fencing as by Romeo's stupid interference. That is drama. That is acting! Further, it is not the literary quality which commends Mercutio's speech to us, but the drama of it.

"No: 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'tis enough—'twill serve: I am peppered, I warrant for this world. A plague on both your houses! What! A dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm."

Or, let me point out the example of the cunningly wrought-up interest, the tenseness, the suspense of the trial scene in the "Merchant of Venice." There we have wonderfully wrought drama; wonderfully wrought, indeed, by the master-hand of the theatre. For, look you, he leads you up to the knife at the breast before he gives you any relief by telling you that the Jew must get his pound of flesh but-

PORTIA: "Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less nor more

But just a pound of fleshif thou takest more

Or less than a just pound—be it but so much

As makes it light or heavy in the substance,

Or the division of the twentieth part

Of one poor scruple! nay, if the scale do turn

But in the estimation of a hair,—

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate."

GRATIANO: "A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew! Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip."

Is that literature? It may be, but the literary quality must take second place to its quality of drama. It is the knife and the drama of the scene that strikes us hardest. The Jew tricked, and the scales turned in Gratiano's exultant repetition of the Jew's phrase.

Who else but an old trickster of the stage would expect us to believe that Portia's disguise would deceive Bassanio! That trick was in keeping with Gus Thomas's putting a stamp on an envelope and then declaring the communication under the protection of the United States Government, despite the fact that we all know the Government is not responsible until the letter is in its charge. (Scene in "Arizona.") Or William Gillette's trick in "Secret Service," perhaps the finest melodrama written in twenty years, wherein the Southern spy tries to prevent the Northern spy from sending his message over the wires by drawing the General's attention to the fact that the signature is pasted on the message. Thorn's answer is, "They often come that way, Sir," and gets away with it.

ASK Mr. Gillette, or Mr. Thomas, and we will wager that they will confess that these tricks were only the result of a knowledge of the theatre learned by serving it patiently on their knees, for years.

After the murder of Duncan, the knocking at the gate which makes Macbeth quake with fear and is followed by the entrance of Macduff, the man who is to kill him at the last. Theatre! Theatre! Theatre!

We could go on giving countless examples of the "theatre" of these plays. For instance, Hamlet's scene with Marcellus and Horatio in which he makes them swear.

HAMLET: Never to speak of this that you have seen. Swear by my sword.

GHOST: (Beneath) Swear.

HAMLET: Hie et ubique? Then we'll shift our ground,

Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword;

Never to speak of this that you have heard,

Swear by my sword:

GHOST: (Beneath) Swear.

HAMLET: Well said, old mole! Can'st work i' the earth so fast?

A worthy pioneer! Once more remove, good friends.

His father murdered, the boy's desire to revenge his death. His agony of mind in trying to concentrate on that tragedy. The swearing of his friends to secrecy, and the terrific mental torment he feels on hearing the Ghost's unrest in the cold ground in his constant repetition of "Swear." His effort to escape from the tragedy of that cry. His "Once more remove, good friends!" All this is sheer theatre at its best.

So is the Ghost's visitation in the closet scene, to remind Hamlet of his oath, when the boy is pleading with his mother—" Go not to mine uncle's bed. Assume a virtue, if you have it not "—one of the most pathetic situations the stage has ever known.

It is not their literary or poetic value which makes these scenes so tremendous, but the intensity and power of their action.

These scenes, when properly played, would leave the audience too limp with tears to care a button whether the lines had any literary excellence. in them or not.

SIR Herbert Tree once invited a dozen or more friends to hear a play that Zangwill had just written. It was called "The War God." Zangwill was evidently conscious at last of a fact which critics had been trying to point out to him for years; namely, that he had never written a real play in prose. So this time he had attempted to write one in verse. In this play his anxiety to write verse led him to take the unfortunate drama, throttle it, and throw it into the street.

The men who were present, when asked their opinion of the play, said variously: "I like it." "It interested me immensely." "I thought it most engrossing." "I was very favorably impressed." Lawrence Irving finally suggested that it might have been better if written in prose. Finally my opinion was asked. I felt somehow compelled to live up to the reputation that we Americans are all cowboys, and declared that it was not a play at all. I pointed out—as an actor—that Zangwill, in his desire to show that he could write verse —which, incidentally, he could not—had entirely forgotten the drama. To illustrate my point, I reminded the gentleman present that Sir Herbert Tree then had a play on in his theatre entitled "Henry VIII," and that the author of that piece never presumed to suppress a suspicion of drama for any literary gem whatever.

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Indeed, the curtain is not up two minutes in "Henry VIII" before we witness the arrest of Buckingham, and, although Mr. Zangwill's play was supposed to be a struggle between the God of War and the God of Peace there was no conflict in it of any sort, either physical or mental.

"Henry VIII" ran for over three hundred nights and Mr. Zangwill's play ran for two nights exactly.

Whenever an author introduces fine speeches into his play, at the expense of the drama, he is sure to pay a heavy price for it, a price usually little short of the life of his play.

Bernard Shaw, for example, is constantly interrupting the direct action of his plays—especially in his later work—to air his opinions on a multitude of subjects— but Shakespeare's respect for the "theatre" is shown by his constant refusal to do anything of the sort. He is content to prove his theories by the action of the play.

In the thousands of books which have been published about Shakespeare there are endless dissertations on the poetic beauty of his lines, on his genius as a poet, on his immense knowledge—which touched all the fields of human thought—and on his profound understanding of the heart of man.

But not one of these laborious works of criticism has so far been written to prove the remarkable fact that the writer of these plays, whoever he was, built up his dramas—BY ACTION!