VOLUME 12

NUMBER 8

T&

ODAY a journey across Europe, say from Moscow to London, is not the uneventful affair it was in 1913. It is a series of exceedingly difficult adventures in which a passport viséd almost out of recognition plays a leading part. Traveling is indeed so eventful, so extremely uncomfortable that no one willingly undergoes it except for an absolutely necessary purpose, or because he is unaware of the difficulties.

Before the war, Europe was composed of twenty-six countries united by common interests, common currency, and speaking, or understanding three fairly universal languages, English, French and German. Now there are thirty-five countries each seeking to exclude the other, to speak only its own language, to use its own currency, each requiring a visé, and each economically at war with the others. In their eager endeavor to form independent political and economic units, they have deliberately cut themselves off from each other by fortifying endless miles and miles of new frontier and setting up protectional defences, which in their power to kill, recall some of the barbarous devices that separated armies at wartime. From this it is not difficult for anyone to gather an idea of the obstacles which the peaceful "missionary" has to overcome in a present-day attempt to inquire into, say, the comparative state of the European theatre. Imagine the States of America closing their frontiers, entering upon a bitter economic war with each other, and adopting different languages, currencies and the like, and you have the state of things that exists in Europe.

For anyone who enjoys the work of inquiring into the progress of the European theatre and does not mind very great discomfort, there are exceedingly interesting results. If one likes, one can trace in theatrical exhibitions all over Europe those human feelings evoked by the terrible events of the black period through which Europe has passed, acting upon deeply sensitive peoples and upon a theatre (using the term theatre in the sense of a number of playhouses) which has become. through organization and human association, as sensitive as themselves. In a word, an organic theatre which England does not possess.

If the inquirer examines the present-day European theatre from this standpoint, he will find that it expresses, broadly speaking, two sets of feelings: there is the feeling of elation experienced by the peoples of the newly liberated countries, Baltic States, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and others, and the feeling of depression experienced by peoples of the old German and Austrian-Hungarian Empires. Along with both there goes a manifestation of a new spirit,-the spirit of a creative life to which the great débâcle seems to have given birth. This spirit is in turn practically giving birth to a new theatrical experience in the new countries, while adapting the existing theatrical experience to new purposes in the old ones.

THE

HE three Baltic States, Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (till recently under Russian rule) are rapidly developing a theatrical life of their own. thonia, in particular, is developing it in a manner which shows that its theatre may be trusted to take a foremost part in theatrical advance once it has had time to realize its resources. Though it is only a small state with a population of 1,200,000, yet it possesses three magnificent national theatres equal in size, appearance and equipment to any Europe can show. This is more remarkable, when we remember that till 1884, Esthonia had no professional theatre. Before 1800, it had no political rights. These were conferred on it by the Russians and since 1800 it has put on political and cultural forms.

Among the latter are the three magnificent theatres alluded to, the Säde at Walras; the Endla at Pernau; and the Esthonia at Reval, which cost 70,000 pounds. The last is an imposing white double theatre occupying an island site and formed by two wings, one of which is an opera house and the other a playhouse. These are joined by a main building which serves several purposes. In the space between is a large open-air restaurant so decorated with foliage and lights as to convert the whole into a delightful summer theatre. With no national plays or opera of great note in its cupboard as yet, the Esthonia theatre draws its supply

of entertainments largely from international sources. Plays by Shakespeare, Hugo, Schiller, Hauptmann, Wilde, Hansun, Kut, Bjornson, and Shaw are frequently given.

The Esthonian version of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream is extremely popular, being usually played to packed houses.

Perhaps the Esthonians are more national in their music. Musical societies are everywhere. The chief characteristics of the existing music is a mysticism and deep melancholy as of a people ardently desiring liberty and full of hope for the re-birth of Esthonia. The national liberation music of a people reaching to a freer life has, I think, yet to come for it is scarcely a twelvemonth since the Bolsheviks ceased their attacks. At any rate, I did not discover any during my visit. There was nothing to note in Latvia except that the back of the fine national theatre at Riga had just been blown off by a Bolshevik bomb.

POLAND, too, is rapidly throwing off the restrictions

imposed by Russian and Austrian occupiers. But, like the Baltic states, it has not had time for much development. Only a year ago, the Bolsheviks were hammering at the gates of Warsaw so to speak, and a little village scarcely a stone's throw away was still smouldering when I visited it on my way across the terrible Russo-Polish frontier, though the work of its theatre falls definitely into two parts-and intensely interesting ones they are. The first part comprises an exhibition of those alternating emotions of fear and hope evoked by the events of the war and the Bolshevik invasion from 1914 to October 1920. The second part from 1919, before the Bolshevik menace became felt, to the present day really marks the beginning of a new national policy in the theatre adopted by the Polish people to focus attention on essential needs of a New Poland. During the period 1914 to 1920 theatrical exhibitions manifested the psychology of the Polish people touched by the momentous circumstances of the occupation by Russians and Austrians; the Russian evacuation; the German occupation; the German and Austrian evacuation in 1918; the short period of relief and then the Bolshevik invasion and final evacuation. During the second period one traces in plays and operas an emotion of great relief, and an aspiration toward nation building.

I gathered a great deal of information on the wartime and after work of the theatre, in particular from the great Opera House, and the beautiful Polski theatre, at Warsaw, and the great theatre at Cracow, which will enable me to trace the succeeding phases of the struggle undergone by the public mind during the above mentioned periods when I come to record results. I also obtained the names of Polish authors whose plays are suitable for translation. Those most strongly recommended are George Szaniawski and Charles Rostworowski. Two authors were provoked by the Bolshevik

invasion to writing plays which criticised Bolshevism, and Zieromski's Escpialion and Whiter than Snow, and Rostworowski's Charity are worthy of international consideration as plays that strongly reveal the reaction of a very sensitive and deeply religious people to what they consider a display of barbarism. Charity preaches that there is no charity in Bolshevism and without charity, it cannot succeed in forming a new world.

I found two admirable examples of the new allPolish spirit, one in an all-Polish Ballet Pantomime Pan Twardowski, of which I saw three performances at the great Opera House at Warsaw. It was the combined work of the Polish composer, Ludomir Rozycki, and a Polish decorator of great talent, W. Drabik. These two able men have worked upon certain old Polish legends associated with the Polish Faust with the result that they have produced a very fine piece of imaginative fantasy which, no doubt, will make its way to England and America as it thoroughly deserves. The other example appeared in the joyful little theatre, The Bacatela, at Cracow, which was built a year or two ago under extraordinary difficulties. It claims to be the outcome of all-Polish labor and to possess an all-Polish scheme of interior decoration. It embodies some of the latest little theatre principles of construction. I think it may be taken as a prophecy of a revival of national traditions in architecture in Poland.

S Czecho-Slovakia enjoyed a certain degree of freedom of expression for some years previous to the war which encouraged plays and operas by Czechs, I did not expect to find the repertory cupboard quite so bare of national resources as those of other successive countries. Its theatre had certainly more to put on when liberation came. At the same time, while yet under foreign rule, its fine national theatres, especially at Bratislava and Prague, did a great deal for the glory of international playwrights and composers, and very little for its own. If one examines the wartime work of the Prague theatre, one finds that the changing phases of the public mind are mainly expressed by foreign means. This is the theatre that produced a complete cycle of Shakespeare's plays in 1916 during one of the greatest crises of the war: But liberation has stimulated home production and it is to the interest of students of the theatre to watch the free expression of a people who undoubtedly have all the best elements of culture in them.

Perhaps I shall have an opportunity to return to the subject of the Theatre in Central Europe, Hungarian, Austrian and German, of whose work I have an interesting psychological analysis as a result of my inquiry into the intensely human aspect of the European theatre revealed by the war. It is this aspect and not the pre-war aesthetic one which is going to predominate during the coming years. It is the one. thing needed to impress upon our minds the serious character of the theatre.