The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 written by Various
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7 INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
* * * * *
Vol. I. NEW YORK, AUGUST 19, 1850. No. 8.
* * * * *
THE THEATER IN RUSSIA AND POLAND.
The following interesting sketch of the Drama in the empire of
the Czar is translated for the _International_ from the Leipzig
_Grenzboten_. The facts it states are not only new to most readers,
but throw incidentally a good deal of light on the condition of that
vast empire, and the state of its population in respect of literature
and art in general:
* * * * *
The dramatic taste of a people, the strength of its productive
faculty, the gradual development of its most popular sphere of art,
the theater, contain the key to phases of its character which cannot
always be recognized with the same exactness from other parts of its
history. The tendencies and disposition of the mass come out very
plainly in their relations to dramatic art, and from the audience of
an evening at a theater some inference may be drawn as to the whole
political scope of the nation. In truth, however, this requires
penetration as well as cautious judgment.
In the middle of the last century there were in the kingdom of Poland,
beside the royal art institutions at Warsaw, four strong dramatic
companies, of genuine Polish stamp, which gave performances in the
most fashionable cities. Two of them were so excellent that they
often had the honor to play before the court. The peculiarity of these
companies was that they never performed foreign works, but literally
only their own. The managers were either themselves poets, or had
poets associated with them in business. Each was guided by his poet,
as Wallenstein by his astrologer. The establishment depended on
its dramatic ability, while its performances were limited almost
exclusively to the productions of its poet. The better companies,
however, were in the habit of making contracts with each other, by
which they exchanged the plays of their dramatists. This limitation to
native productions perhaps grew partly out of the want of familiarity
with foreign literature, partly from national feeling, and partly from
the fact that the Polish taste was as yet little affected by that of
the Germans, French, or English. In these circumstances there sprung
up a poetic creative faculty, which gave promise of a good and really
national drama. And even now, after wars, revolutions, and the schemes
of foreign rulers have alternately destroyed and degraded the stage,
and after the Poles have become poetically as well as politically
mere satellites of French ideas and culture, there still exist, as
respectable remains of the good old time, a few companies of players,
which, like their ancient predecessors, have their own poets, and
perform only his pieces, or at least others of Polish origin that he
has arranged and adapted. Such a company, whose principal personage
is called Richlawski, is now in Little Poland, in the cities Radom,
Kielce, Opatow, Sandomir, &c. A second, which generally remains in the
Government of Kalisch, is under the direction of a certain Felinski,
and through his excellent dramatic compositions has gained a
reputation equal to that of the band of Strauss in music. Yet these
companies are only relics. The Polish drama in general has now a
character and destiny which was not to be expected a hundred years
since.
The origin of the Russian theater is altogether more recent. It is
true that Peter the Great meddled a good deal with the theater as well
as with other things, but it was not till the Empress Catharine
that dramatic literature was really emancipated by the court. Under
Alexander and Nicholas the most magnificent arrangements have been
made in every one of the cities that from time to time is honored by
the residence of the Emperor, so that Russia boasts of possessing five
theaters, two of which excel everything in Europe in respect to size
and splendor, but yet possesses no sort of taste for dramatic art. The
stage, in the empire of the Muscovites, is like a rose-bush grafted on
a wild forest tree. It has not grown up naturally from a poetic want
in the people, and finds in the country little or nothing in the way
of a poetic basis. Accordingly, the theater in Russia is in every
respect a foreign institution. Not national in its origin, it has not
struck its roots into the heart of the people. Only here and there
a feeble germ of theatrical literature has made its way through the
obstinate barbarism of the Russian nature. The mass have no feeling
for dramatic poetry, while the cultivated classes exhibit a most
striking want of taste.
But in Russia everything is inverted. What in other nations is
the final result of a long life, is there the beginning. A natural
development of the people appears to its rulers too circuitous,
and in fact would in many things require centuries of preparation.
Accordingly, they seek to raise their subjects to the level of other
races by forcing them outwardly to imitate their usages. Peter the
Great says in his testament: "Let there be no intermission in teaching
the Russian people European forms and customs." The theater in Russia
is one of these forms, and from this it is easy to understand the
condition it is in.
It is true there are in the country a few independent companies
of players, but they are not Russian, or at least were formed as a
speculation by some foreigner. For example, Odessa has often two
such, and sometimes three. The Italian company is said to be good. The
Russian, which has now become permanent, has hitherto been under the
management of a German, and has been very poor. The company in Kiew
consists mostly of Poles, from the old Polish provinces incorporated
with Russia, and has a high reputation. In Poland it would be possible
in every little nest of a city to get together a tolerable company for
dramatic performance. In Russia it would be much easier to raise an
army. The ultimate reason of this striking contrast is the immense
dissimilarity in the character of the two nations. The Pole is
remarkably sanguine, fiery, enthusiastic, full of ideality and
inspiration; the Russian is through and through material, a lover of
coarse physical pleasures, full of ability to fight and cut capers,
but not endowed with a capacity quickly to receive impressions and
mentally elaborate them.
In this respect, the mass and the aristocracy, the serfs and their
masters, are as alike as twins. The noble is quite as coarse as the
peasant. In Poland this is quite otherwise. The peasant may be called
a rough creature, but the noble is almost always a man of refinement,
lacking indeed almost always in scientific information, but never
in the culture of a man of the world. The reason of this is, that
his active, impetuous soul finds constant occasion for maintaining
familiarity with the world around him, and really needs to keep up a
good understanding with it. The Russians know no such want.
Even in St. Petersburg the German was long much more successful than
the native theater, though the number of Russians there is seventeen
times larger than that of the Germans. The Russians who there
visit the theater are the richest and most prominent members of the
aristocracy. They however consider the drama as simply a thing of
fashion. Hence results the curious fact that it is thought a matter
of good taste to be present at the beginning but not to wait for the
end of a piece. It has happened that long before the performance was
over the house was perfectly empty, everyone following the fashion,
in order not to seem deficient in public manners. If there is ever
a great attraction at the theater, it is not the play, but some
splendid show. The Russian lady, in studying the _coiffure_ or the
trailing-robe of an actress, forgets entirely her part in this piece,
if indeed she has ever had an adequate conception of it. For this
reason, at St. Petersburg and Moscow the ballet is esteemed infinitely
higher than the best drama; and if the management should have
the command of the Emperor to engage rope-dancers and athletes,
circus-riders and men-apes, the majority of Russians would be of
opinion that the theater had gained the last point of perfection. This
was the case in Warsaw several years ago, when the circus company of
Tourniare was there. The theaters gave their best and most popular
pieces, in order to guard against too great a diminution of their
receipts. The Poles patriotically gave the preference for the drama,
but the Russians were steady adorers of Madame Tourniare and her
horse. In truth, the lady enjoyed the favor of Prince Paskiewich.
General O---- boasted that during the eleven months that the circus
staid he was not absent from a single performance. The Polish Count
Ledochowski, on the other hand, said that he had been there but once
when he went with his children, and saw nothing of the performance,
because he read Schiller's William Tell every moment. This was Polish
opposition to Russian favoritism, but it also affords an indication of
the national peculiarities of the two races.
From deficiency in taste for dramatic art arises the circumstance that
talent for acting is incomparably scarce among the Russians. Great
as have been the efforts of the last emperors of Russia to add a new
splendor to their capitals by means of the theater, they have not
succeeded in forming from their vast nation artists above mediocrity,
except in low comedy. At last it was determined to establish dramatic
schools in connection with the theaters and educate players; but it
appears that though talent can be developed, it cannot be created at
the word of command. The Emperor Nicholas, or rather his wife, was,
as is said, formerly so vexed at the incapacity of the Russians
for dramatic art, that it was thought best to procure children in
Germany for the schools. The Imperial will met with hindrance, and he
contented himself with taking children of the German race from his own
dominions. The pride of the Russians did not suffer in consequence.
While poetry naturally precedes dramatic art, the drama, on the other
hand, cannot attain any degree of excellence where the theater is in
such a miserable state. It is now scarcely half a century since the
effort was begun to remove the total want of scientific culture in
the Russian nation, but what are fifty years for such a purpose, in
so enormous a country? The number of those who have received the
scientific stimulus and been carried to a degree of intellectual
refinement is very small, and the happy accident by which a man of
genius appears among the small number must be very rare. And in this
connection it is noteworthy, that the Russian who feels himself
called to artistic production almost always shows a tendency to epic
composition.
The difficulties of form appear terrible to the Russian. In
romance-writing the form embarrasses him less, and accordingly they
almost all throw themselves into the making of novels.
As is generally the case in the beginning of every nation's
literature, any writer in Russia is taken for a miracle, and regarded
with stupor. The dramatist Kukolnik is an example of this. He has
written a great deal for the theater, but nothing in him is to be
praised so much as his zeal in imitation. It must be admitted that in
this he possesses a remarkable degree of dexterity. He soon turned to
the favorite sphere of romance writing, but in this also he manifests
the national weakness. In every one of his countless works the most
striking feature is the lack of organization. They were begun and
completed without their author's ever thinking out a plot, or its mode
of treatment.
Kukolnik's "Alf and Adona," in which at least one hundred and fifty
characters are brought upon the stage, has not one whose appearance is
designed to concentrate the interest of the audience. Each comes in to
show himself, and goes out not to be in the way any longer. Everything
is described and explained with equal minuteness, from the pile of
cabbages by the wayside, to the murder of a prince; and instead of a
historical action there is nothing but unconnected details. The same
is the case with his "Eveline and Baillerole," in which Cardinal
Richelieu is represented as a destroyer of the aristocracy, and which
also is made up of countless unconnected scenes, that in part are
certainly done with some neatness. These remarks apply to the works
of Iwan Wanenko and I. Boriczewski, to I. Zchewen's "Sunshine", five
volumes strong; to the compositions of Wolkow, Czerujawski, Ulitinins,
Th. Van Dim, (a pseudonym,) in fact to everything that has yet
appeared.
On the part of the Imperial family, as we have already said,
everything has been done for the Russian stage that could possibly be
done, and is done no where else. The extremest liberality favors the
artists, schools are provided in order to raise them from the domain
of gross buffoonery to that of true art, the most magnificent premiums
are given to the best, actors are made equal in rank to officers of
state, they are held only to twenty-five years' service, reckoning
from their debut,--and finally, they receive for the rest of their
lives a pension equal to their full salaries. High rewards are given
to Russian star-actors, in order if possible to draw talent of every
sort forth from the dry steppes of native art. The Russian actors are
compelled on pain of punishment to go regularly to the German theater,
with a view to their improvement, and in order to make this as
effective as may be, enormous compensations attract the best German
stars to St. Petersburg. And yet all this is useless, and the Russian
theater is not raised above the dignity of a workshop. Only the comic
side of the national character, a burlesque and droll simplicity, is
admirably represented by actors whose skill and the scope of whose
talents may he reckoned equal to the Germans in the same line. But
in the higher walks of the drama they are worthless. The people have
neither cultivation nor sentiment for serious works, while the poets
to produce them, and the actors to represent them, are alike wanting.
Immediately after the submission of Poland in 1831, the theaters,
permanent and itinerant, were closed. The plan was conceived of not
allowing them to be reoepened until they could be occupied by Russian
performers. But as the Government recovered from its first rage,
this was found to be impracticable. The officers of the garrisons in
Poland, however numerous, could never support Russian theaters, and
besides, where were the performers to come from? In Warsaw, however,
it was determined to force a theater into existence, and a Russian
newspaper was already established there. The power of the Muscovites
has done great things, built vast fortresses and destroyed vaster, but
it could not accomplish a Russian theater at Warsaw. Even the paper
died before it had attained a regular life, although it cost a great
deal of money.
Finally came the permission to reoepen the Polish theater, and indeed
the caprice which was before violent against it, was now exceedingly
favorable, but of course not without collateral purposes. The scanty
theater on the Krasinski place, which was alone in Warsaw, except the
remote circus and the little theater of King Stanislaus Augustus,
was given up, and the sum of four millions of florins ($1,600,000)
devoted to the erection of two large and magnificent theaters. The
superintendence of the work of building and the management of the
performances was, according to the Russian system, intrusted to one
General Rautenstrauch, a man seventy years old, and worn out both
in mind and body. The two theaters were erected under one roof, and
arranged on the grandest and most splendid scale. The edifice is
opposite the City Hall, occupies a whole side of the main public
place, and is above 750 feet in length. The pit in each is supported
by a series of immense, stupid, square pilasters, such as architecture
has seldom witnessed out of Russia. Over these pilasters stands
the first row of boxes supported by beautifully wrought Corinthian
columns, and above these rise three additional rows. The edifice is
about 160 feet high and is the most colossal building in Warsaw. As it
was designed to treat the actors in military fashion and according to
Russian style, the building was laid out like barracks and about seven
hundred persons live in it, most of them employed about the theater.
The two stages were built by a German architect under the inspection
of the General whose peremptory suggestions were frequent and
injurious. Both the great theater as it is called, which has four
rows of boxes, and can contain six thousand auditors, and the Variete
theater which is very much smaller, are fitted out with all sorts of
apparatus that ever belonged to a stage. In fact, new machinery has
in many cases been invented for them and proved totally useless. The
Russian often hits upon queer notions when he tries to show his gifts.
On one side a very large and strong bridge has been erected leading
from the street to the stage, to be used whenever the piece requires
large bodies of cavalry to make their appearance, and there are
machines that can convey persons with the swiftness of lightning down
from the sky above the stage, a distance of 56 feet. A machine for
which a ballet has been composed surpasses everything I ever saw in
its size; it serves to transport eighty persons together on a seeming
cloud from the roof to the foot-lights. I was astonished by it when I
first beheld it although I had seen the machines of the grand opera at
Paris: the second time I reflected that it alone cost 40,000 florins
[$16,000].
Under the management of two Russian Generals, who have hitherto been
at the head of the establishment, a vast deal has in this way been
accomplished for mere external show.
The great Russian theatre of St. Petersburg has served for a model,
and accordingly nothing has really been improved except that part of
the performance which is farthest removed from genuine art, namely
the ballet. That fact is that out of Paris the ballet is nowhere
so splendid as in the great theater at Warsaw, not even at St.
Petersburg, for the reason that the Russian is inferior to the Pole in
physical beauty and grace. Heretofore the corps of the St. Petersburg
ballet has twice been composed of Poles, but this arrangement has been
abandoned as derogatory to the national honor. The sensual attractions
of the ballet render it the most important thing in the theater. A
great school for dancers has been established, where pupils may be
found from three to eighteen years old. It is painful to see the
little creatures, hardly weaned from their mothers' breasts--twisted
and tortured for the purposes of so doubtful an occupation as dancing.
The school contains about two hundred pupils, all of whom occasionally
appear together on the boards, in the ballet of Charis and Flora, for
instance, when they receive a trifling compensation. For the rest the
whole ballet corps are bound to daily practice.
The taste of the Russians has made prominent in the ballet exactly
those peculiarities which are least to its credit. It must be
pronounced exaggerated and lascivious. Aside from these faults, which
may be overlooked as the custom of the country, we must admit that the
dancing is uncommonly good.
The greater the care of the management for the ballet, the more
injurious is its treatment of the drama. This is melancholy for the
artists and especially those who have come to the imperial theater
from the provinces, who are truly respectable and are equally good in
comedy and tragedy. The former has been less shackled than the latter
for the reason that it turns upon domestic life. But tragedy is most
frightfully treated by the political censorship, so that a Polish
poet can hardly expect to see his pieces performed on the stage of
his native country. Hundreds of words and phrases such as freedom,
avenging sword, slave, oppression, father-land, cannot be permitted
and are stricken out. Accordingly nothing but the trumpery of mere
penny-a-liners is brought forward, though this sometimes assumes an
appearance of originality. These abortions remain on the stage only
through the talent of the artists, the habit of the public to expect
nothing beyond dullness and stupidity in the drama, and finally, the
severe regulation which forbids any mark of disapprobation under pain
of imprisonment. The best plays are translated from the French, but
they are never the best of their kind. To please the Russians only
those founded on civic life are chosen, and historical subjects are
excluded. Princely personages are not allowed to be introduced on
the stage, nor even high officers of state, such as ministers and
generals. In former times the Emperor of China was once allowed to
pass, but more recently the Bey of Tunis was struck out and converted
into an African nobleman. A tragedy is inadmissible in any case, and
should one be found with nothing objectionable but its name, it is
called drama.
In such circumstances we would suppose that the actors would lose all
interest in their profession. But this is not the case. At least the
cultivated portion of the public at Warsaw never go to the theater to
see a poetic work of art, but only to see and enjoy the skill of the
performers. Of course there is no such thing as theatrical criticism
at Warsaw; but everybody rejoices when the actors succeed in causing
the wretchedness of the piece to be forgotten. The universal regret
for the wretched little theater on the Krasinski place, where
Suczkowska, afterward Mad. Halpert, founded her reputation in the
character of the Maid of Orleans, is the best criticism on the present
state of the drama.
The Russians take great delight in the most trivial pieces. Even
Prince Paskiewich sometimes stays till the close of the last act. To
judge by the direction of his opera-glass, which is never out of his
hand, he has the fortune to discover poetry elsewhere than on the
stage. In truth the Warsaw boxes are adorned by beautiful faces. Even
the young princess Jablonowska is not the most lovely.
The arrangements of the Warsaw theaters are exactly like those of the
Russian theater at St. Petersburg, but almost without exception, the
pupils of the dramatic school, of whom seventeen have come upon the
boards, have proved mere journeymen, and have been crowded aside by
performers from the provincial cities. None of the eminent artists of
late years have enjoyed the advantages of the school. The position
of the actors at Warsaw is just the same as at St. Petersburg. The
day after their first appearance they are regularly taken into duty
as imperial officials, take an oath never to meddle with political
affairs, nor join in any secret society, nor ever to pronounce on the
stage anything more or anything else than what is in the stamped parts
given them by the imperial management.
Actors' salaries at Warsaw are small in comparison with those of other
countries. Forty or fifty silver rubles a month ($26 to $33) pass for
a very respectable compensation, and even the very best performers
rarely get beyond a thousand rubles a year ($650). Madame Halpert
long had to put up with that salary till once Taglioni said to Prince
Paskiewich that it was a shame for so magnificent an artist to be no
better paid than a writer. Her salary was thereupon raised one-half,
and subsequently by means of a similar mediation she succeeded in
getting an addition of a thousand rubles yearly under the head of
wardrobe expenses. This was a thing so extraordinary that the managing
General declared that so enormous a compensation would never again be
heard of in any imperial theatre. The pupils of the dramatic school
receive eighteen rubles monthly, and, according to their performances,
obtain permission every two years to ask an increase of salary. The
period of service extends to twenty-five years, with the certainty
of a yearly pension equal to the salary received at the close of the
period.
For the artist this is a very important arrangement, which enables him
to endure a thousand inconveniences.
There is no prospect of a better state of the Polish drama. Count
Fedro may, in his comedies, employ the finest satire with a view
to its restoration, but he will accomplish nothing so long as the
Generals ride the theater as they would a war horse. On the other
hand, no Russian drama has been established, because the conditions
are wanting among the people. That is a vast empire, but poor in
beauty; mighty in many things, but weak in artistic talents; powerful
and prompt in destruction, but incapable spontaneously and of itself
to create anything.
* * * * *
"DEATH'S JEST BOOK, OR THE FOOL'S TRAGEDY."
The _Examiner_, for July 20, contains an elaborate review, with
numerous extracts, of a play just published under this title in
London. "It is radiant," says the critic, "in almost every page with
passion, fancy, or thought, set in the most apposite and exquisite
language. We have but to discard, in reading it, the hope of any
steady interest of story, or consistent development of character:
and we shall find a most surprising succession of beautiful passages,
unrivaled in sentiment and pathos, as well as in terseness, dignity,
and picturesque vigor of language; in subtlety and power of passion,
as well as in delicacy and strength of imagination; and as perfect and
various, in modulation of verse, as the airy flights of Fletcher or
Marlowe's mighty line.
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