elementary and conventional features, but vigorously molded; the basic passions, throbbing to simple but forceful rhythm: frescoes, not easel-paintings; symphonies, not chamber music-a monumental art for the people, and by the people.'

By the people! Yes, because there can be no great popular work except where the poet's soul collaborates with that of the nation, and receives nourishment from the passions common to all. The bourgeois critics maintain that nothing so attracts

1 Here again we may profitably turn to the performances in Switzerland, some of which, like those at Lausanne, are given before 20,000 spectators. Here are a few points which struck me:

I. It is not true, as some musicians have maintained, that these huge theaters cannot be used except for musical productions. If the acoustics are normal, the spoken word carries as far as the sung declamation, and much better than the orchestra, which, in outdoor theaters, should be reduced to the woodwinds and brasses: stringed instruments are almost lost.

2. It goes without saying that the actor cannot observe the usual rules for speaking. He must stand well forward and articulate clearly. Consequently it is necessary to simplify the action, eliminate long dialogues. Dialogue must be clearly marked. There must be few words, and few gestures, but these should be expressive; vigorous concentration of action, passion, and style.

3. Music is a great help-but in the background. It ought to be merely the basis of the fresco, the support to the action, the atmosphere. It should impregnate each scene with the proper color, and never attract attention to itself, on pain of ruining the play. In a word, the music must be intelligently and disinterestedly administered. (But of course I am demanding an impossibility!)

4. A theater of this sort requires powerful fresco effects.

the people as novels and plays in which the heroes. are of the upper classes, because the description of a richer society makes them for the time being forget their own misery. This is possibly true, so long as the people are reduced to the condition in which they now live; but the moment they become conscious of their own personality and realize their civic dignity, they will blush at the thought of having read that servants' literature. It is the duty of those who love the people to develop their taste.

Great masses of the people are used, as individuals are in our ordinary theaters. Group dialogues must be introduced, double and triple choruses, but care should be taken not to return to neo-classic archaism, as Schiller did in his Braut von Messina. Each group should also be allowed the greatest liberty within itself. Individual conflicts should little by little give way to mass conflict. Broad sweeping lines. Vigorous dramatic struggle. Large light-and-shade effects. It is impossible to describe the overwhelming effect of absolute silence succeeding a tumult. The Greeks realized this. The instinct of the Swiss peasant also.

5. We are beginning to see experiments in this monumental and statuesque art, and a new dramatic art is emerging. It seems as if Diderot's theory of "double action" is at last being realized (see p. 66). The great size of the Swiss and Bavarian theaters (especially at Oberammergau) are such as to allow various episodes simultaneously on different levels of the stage. Here the Virgin in tears seeks her son, while there we see Christ in a street of Jerusalem, bearing His cross. Cæsar is seen going to the Capitol, while inside the palace the conspirators are making their preparations. These are different aspects of the drama, all happening at the same time. The play is immensely richer in effect, and the sight of Destiny reaching out for blind man is truly terrifying and magnificent.

I do not mean that the people must necessarily participate

The people must not of course see only themselves represented in their drama, but they ought to be raised from the humiliating position they have so long occupied on our stage. They must no longer be depicted as skulking valets, spying out their masters' secrets. Let them participate as citizens of the universe, in the great spectacle of the universe! Let all classes be shown on the stage, just as all should be in the auditorium, but as brothers and equals, and not as rivals. Let the people be shown the great men of the world, kings, ministers, and conquerors-not because they were the people's masters, but because they represented the State-the

in the action, or that popular dramas require actors from among the people. This is a most complex question, involving not only esthetic but moral problems. In the case of exceptional festivals there is nothing more natural than that the people should participate-as in Switzerland, where all the rôles are played by the people or the bourgeois of the Canton without distinction of class. In a case of this sort, the dramatic action is a real action, and participation in it is no more than the duty of a citizen. But in the case of a regular theater, participation on the part of the people is in many ways inconvenient, and more trouble than it is worth. It keeps them from their work, or else imposes an unreasonable amount of it on them; but above all, it is likely to render them vain and insincere. Art gains nothing; or if it did, it would be at too great cost. Here I agree with Maurice Pottecher, who uses actors from the people for extraordinary festivals, but is opposed to using them for a Parisian People's Theater. "Why go to the trouble, in a city which has already so many professionals? At best you would have only a few mediocre amateurs, and increase the number of cheap actors." (Le Théâtre du Peuple, in the Revue des deux Mondes, July 1, 1903.)

commonwealth of which they, the people, are today the inheritors. In a word, let everything be presented to the people, but only on the condition that they see themselves somewhere in it, and through the present and the past become part of the universe, and that all forms of human energy may flow through them toward the common weal.

III

TYPES OF PEOPLE'S DRAMA

MELODRAMA

THE People's Theater is the key to a new art world, which art has hardly caught sight of. We have reached a parting of the ways, beyond which lies an almost totally unexplored land. Two or three more venturesome spirits have gone ahead. But the instinct of the people should have guided these artists. The people speak frankly, and their preferences leave no possible room for doubt. But what artist cares in the least what the public wants? They consider it contemptible not to feel contempt for the people.

Mocked at or disdained, little do the people care! For the last hundred years they have remained faithful to the entertainment so despised by the delicate the circus, the pantomime, the burlesque, and the melodrama. That is, if not simple plays, these arouse simple emotions, simple pleasuresgood and bad-but still simple, appealing to the soul through the senses.

In Greece the theater was popular. What were the plays of the Greeks? It has been fashionable