The theory has been advanced that the great size of the Greek stage, and of the palace in its rear which was its permanent set of scenery, so dwarfed the figures of the actors that buskins and padding were used in order to make the persons of the players more in keeping with their surroundings. With submission, I hold that this theory is arrant nonsense. Even on stilts ten feet high the actors still would have been, in one way, out of proportion with the background. If used at all in tragedy, buskins and pads probably were used to make the heroic characters of the drama literally greater than the other characters.

In point of fact, the majestic height of the scene did not dwarf the human figures sustaining serious parts. The effect was precisely the contrary. Mademoiselle Breval, standing solitary in that great open space, with the play of golden light upon her, became also heroic. With the characters in "Oedipus" and "Antigone" the result was the same: the sombre grandeur of the tragedies was enlarged by the majesty of the background, and play and players alike were upraised to a lofty plane of solemn stateliness by the stately reality of those noble walls: which themselves were tragedies, because of the ruin that had come to them with age.

Upon the comedy that so injudiciously was interpolated into the program the effect of the heroic environment was hopelessly belittling. M. Arene's "L'Ilote" and M. Ferrier's "Revanche d'Iris" are charming of their kind, and to see them in an ordinary theatre—with those intimate accessories of house life which such sparkling trifles require—would be only a delight. But at Orange their sparkle vanished, and they were jarringly out of place. Even the perfect excellence of the players—and no Grecian actress, I am confident, ever surpassed Mademoiselle Rachel-Boyer in exquisitely finished handling of Grecian draperies—could not save them. Quite as distinctly as each of the tragedies was a success, the little comedies were failures: being overwhelmed utterly by their stately surroundings, and lost in the melancholy bareness of that great stage. It was all the more, therefore, an interesting study in the psychology of the drama to perceive how the comparatively few actors in the casts of the tragedies—how even, at times, only one or two figures—seemed entirely to fill the stage; and how at all times those plays and their setting absolutely harmonized.

VIII

Of scenery, in the ordinary sense of the word, there was none at all. What we saw was the real thing. In the opening scene of "Oedipus," the King—coming forward through the royal portal, and across the raised platform in the rear of the stage—did literally "enter from the palace," and did "descend the palace steps" to the "public place" where Creon and the priests awaited him. It was a direct reversal of the ordinary effect in the ordinary theatre: where the play loses in realism because a current of necessarily recognized, but purposely ignored, antagonistic fact underruns the conventional illusion and compels us to perceive that the palace is but painted canvas, and (even on the largest stage) is only four or five times as high as the Prince. The palace at Orange—towering up as though it would touch the very heavens, and obviously of veritable stone—was a most peremptory reality.



The fortuitous accessory of the trees growing close beside the stage added to the outdoor effect still another very vivid touch of realism; and this was heightened by the swaying of the branches, and by the gracious motion of the draperies, under the fitful pressure of the strong gusts of wind. Indeed, the mistral took a very telling part in the performance. Players less perfect in their art would have been disconcerted by it; but these of the Comedie Francaise were quick to perceive and to utilize its artistic possibilities. In the very midst of the solemn denunciation of Oedipus by Tiresias, the long white beard of the blind prophet suddenly was blown upward so that his face was hidden and his utterance choked by it; and the momentary pause, while he raised his hand slowly, and slowly freed his face from this chance covering, made a dramatic break in his discourse and added to it a naturalness which vividly intensified its solemn import. In like manner the final entry of Oedipus, coming from the palace after blinding himself, was made thrillingly real. For a moment, as he came upon the stage, the horror which he had wrought upon himself—his ghastly eye-sockets, his blood-stained face—was visible; and then a gust of wind lifted his mantle and flung it about his head so that all was concealed; and an exquisite pity for him was aroused—while he struggled painfully to rid himself of the encumbrance—by the imposition of that petty annoyance upon his mortal agony of body and of soul.

In such capital instances the mistral became an essential part of the drama; but it was present upon the stage continuously, and its constant play among the draperies—with a resulting swaying of tender lines into a series of enchanting folds, and with a quivering of robes and mantles which gave to the larger motions of the players an undertone of vibrant action—cast over the intrinsic harshness of the tragedy a softening veil of grace.

An enlargement of the same soft influences was due to the entrancing effects of colour and of light. Following the Grecian traditions, the flowing garments of the chorus were in strong yet subdued colour-notes perfectly harmonized. Contrasting with those rich tones, the white-robed figures of the leading characters stood out with a brilliant intensity. And the groups had always a golden background, and over them always the golden glow from the footlights cast a warm radiance that again was strengthened by the golden reflections from the wall of yellow stone, so that the whole symphony in colour had for its under-note a mellow splendour of golden tones.

IX

In this perfect poetic setting the play went on with a stately slowness—that yet was all too fast for the onlookers—and with the perfection of finish that such actors naturally gave to their work amidst surroundings by which they were at once stimulated and inspired. Even the practical defects of the ruinous theatre were turned into poetical advantages which made the tragic action still more real. The woeful entrance of Oedipus and the despairing retreat of Jocasta were rendered the more impressive by momentary pauses in the broken doorway—that emphasized by its wreck their own wrecked happiness; in "Antigone" a touching beauty was given to the entry of the blind Tiresias by his slow approach from the distant side of the theatre, led by a child through the maze of bushes and around the fallen fragments of stone; and Mademoiselle Bartet (Antigone), unable to pass by the door that should have been but was not open for her, made a still finer exit by descending the steps at the side of the stage and disappearing among the trees.

But the most perfect of those artistic utilizations of chance accessories—which were the more effective precisely because they were accidental, and the more appreciated because their use so obviously was an inspiration—was the final exit of Oedipus: a departure "into desert regions" that Mounet-Sully was able to make very literally real.

Over in the corner beside the "garden" exit, as I have said, was a tangled growth of figs and pomegranates; and thence extending almost to the stage was a light fringe of bushes growing along the base of the rear wall among the fragments of fallen stone. It was through that actual wilderness that Oedipus—crossing half the width of the theatre—passed from the brilliant stage into shadow that grew deeper as he advanced, and at last, entering the gap in the stone-work where once the doorway had been, disappeared into the dark depth beyond.

An accident of the moment—the exhaustion of the carbons of the electric lamps—gave to his exit a still keener dramatic intensity. The footlights alone remained burning: flooding with a golden splendour the stage and the great yellow wall, and from the wall reflected upward and outward upon the auditorium; casting over the faces in the orchestra a soft golden twilight, and a still fainter golden light over the more remote hill-side of faces on the tiers—which rose through the golden dusk, and vanished at last in a darkness that still seemed to be a little softened by the faint suggestion of a golden haze.

Interest and light thus together were focused upon the climax of the tragedy. Leaving the light, and with it love and hope and life, behind him, Oedipus descended the steps of the palace, leaning upon the shoulder of a slave, and moved toward the thickening shadows. Watching after him with a profoundly sorrowful intensity was the group upon the stage: a gorgeous mass of warm colour, broken by dashes of gleaming white and bathed in a golden glow. Slowly, painfully, along that rough and troublous way, into an ever-deepening obscurity merging into darkness irrevocable, the blinded king went onward toward the outer wilderness where would be spent the dreary remnant of his broken days. Feeling his way through the tangled bushes; stumbling, almost falling, over the blocks of stone; at times halting, and in his desperate sorrow raising his hands imploringly toward the gods whose foreordered curse had fallen upon him because of his foreordered sin, he went on and on: while upon the great auditorium there rested an ardent silence which seemed even to still the beatings of the eight thousand hearts. And when, passing into the black depths of the broken archway, the last faint gleam of his white drapery vanished, and the strain relaxed which had held the audience still and silent, there came first from all those eager breasts—before the roar of applause which rose and fell, and rose again, and seemed for a while to be quite inextinguishable—a deep-drawn sigh.

X

"Antigone," played on the second evening—being a gentler tragedy than "Oedipus," and conceived in a spirit more in touch with our modern times—was received with a warmer enthusiasm. No doubt to the Greeks, to whom its religious motive was a living reality, "Oedipus" was purely awe-inspiring; but to us, for whom the religious element practically has no existence, the intrinsic qualities of the plot are so repellent that the play is less awe-inspiring than horrible. And even in Grecian times, I fancy—human nature being the same then as now in its substrata—"Antigone," with its conflict between mortals, must have appealed more searchingly to human hearts than ever "Oedipus" could have appealed with its conflict between a mortal and the gods. Naturally, we are in closer sympathy with the righteous defiance of a man by a woman—both before our eyes, passionately flaming with strong antagonistic emotions—than we are with a man's unrighteous defiance of abstract and invisible Fate.

As "Antigone" was given at Orange, the softening influences which had subdued the harshness of "Oedipus" still farther were extended, making its deep tenderness still deeper and more appealing. The inspersion of music of a curiously penetrating, moving sort—composed by Saint-Saens in an approximation to Grecian measures—added a poetic undertone to the poetry of the situations and of the lines; and a greater intensity was given to the crises of the play—an artistic reproduction of the effect caused by the accident of the night before—by extinguishing the electric lamps and so bringing the action to a focus in the mellow radiance which came from the golden footlights and richly lighted the stage.

The poetic key-note was struck in the opening scene: when Antigone and Ismene, robed all in white, entered together by the royal doorway and stood upon the upper plane of the great stage, alone—and yet so filled it that there was no sense of emptiness nor of lack of the ordinary scenery. Again, the setting was not an imitation, but the real thing. The palace from which the sisters had come forth rose stately behind them. Beside the stage, the branches of the fig-tree waved lightly in the breeze. In the golden glow of the footlights and against the golden background the two white-robed figures—their loose vestments, swayed by the wind, falling each moment into fresh lines of loveliness—moved with an exquisite grace. And all this visible beauty reinforced with a moving fervour the penetrating beauty of Antigone's avowal of her love for her dead brother—tender, human, natural—and of her purpose, born of that love, so resolute that to accomplish it she would give her life.



Again, the utter absence of conventional scenery was a benefit rather than a disadvantage. When Creon entered upon the upper plane, attended by his gorgeous guard, and at the same moment the entrance of the chorus filled the lower plane with colour less brilliant but not less strong, the stage was full, not of things, but of people, and was wholly alive. The eye was not distracted by painted scenery—in the ordinary theatre a mechanical necessity, and partly excusable because it also supplies warmth and richness of tone—but was entirely at the service of the mind in following the dramatic action of the play. The setting being a reality, there was no need for mechanism to conceal a seamy side; and the colour-effects were produced by the actors themselves: whose draperies made a superb colour-scheme of strong hues perfectly harmonized, of gleaming white, of glittering golden embroideries—which constantly was rearranged by the shifting of the groups and single figures into fresh combinations; to which every puff of wind and every gesture gave fresh effects of light and shade; and over which the golden light shed always its warm radiance.

Of all those beautiful groupings, the one which most completely fulfilled the several requirements of a picture—subject, composition, colour, light-and-shade—was that of the fourth episode: the white-robed Antigone alone upon the upper plane, an animate statue, a veritable Galatea; the chorus, a broad sweep of warm colour, on the lower plane; the electric lights turned off, leaving the auditorium in semi-obscurity, and concentrating light and thought upon the golden beauty of the stage. With the entry of Creon and his guards both the dramatic and the picturesque demands of the situation were entirely satisfied. In the foreground, a mass of strong subdued colour, were the minor figures of the chorus; in the background, a mass of strong brilliant color, were the minor figures of the guards; between those groups—the subject proper—were Creon and Antigone: their white robes, flashing with their eager gestures and in vivid relief against the rich background, making them at once the centre and the culmination of the magnificent composition. And the beauty and force of such a setting deepened the pathos and intensified the cruelty of the alternately supplicating and ferocious lines.

There was, I regret to say, an absurd anticlimax to that noble scene. Antigone, being recalled and made the centre of a volley of bouquets, ceased to be Antigone and became only Mademoiselle Bartet; and the Greek chorus, breaking ranks and scampering about the stage in order to pick up the leading lady's flowers, ceased to be anything serious and became only ridiculous. For the moment French gallantry rose superior to the eternal fitness of things, and in so doing partially destroyed one of the most beautiful effects ever produced upon the stage. Even in the case of minor players so complete a collapse of dignity would not easily have been forgiven. In the case of players so eminent, belonging to the first theatre in the world, it was unpardonable.

XI

But it could be, and was, for the time being forgotten—as the play went on with a smooth perfection, and with a constantly increasing dramatic force, as the action strengthened and quickened in accord always with the requirements of dramatic art.

Without any apparent effort to secure picturesque effect, with a grouping seemingly wholly unstudied and always natural, the stage presented a series of pictures ideal in their balance of mass, and in their colour and tone, while the turning off and on of the electric lights produced effects analogous to those in music when the soft and hard pedals are used to give to the more tender passages an added grace and delicacy, and to the stronger passages a more brilliant force. And always, be it remembered, the play thus presented was one of the most tenderly beautiful tragedies possessed by the world, and the players—by natural fitness and by training—were perfect in their art.

Presently came the end—not a climax of action; not, in one sense, a climax at all. With a master-touch, Sophocles has made the end of "Antigone" the dead after-calm of evil action—a desolate despair. Slowly the group upon the stage melted away. Creon, with his hopeless cry upon his lips, "Death! Death! Only death!" moved with a weary languor toward the palace and slowly disappeared in the darkness beyond the ruined portal. There was a pause before the chorus uttered its final solemn words. And then—not as though obeying a stage direction, but rather as though moved severally by the longing in their own breasts to get away from that place of sorrow—those others also departed: going slowly, in little groups and singly, until at last the stage was bare.

The audience was held bound in reality by the spell which had seemed to bind the chorus after Creon's exit. Some moments passed before that spell was broken, before the eight thousand hearts beat normally again and the eight thousand throats burst forth into noisy applause—which was less, perhaps, an expression of gratitude for an artistic creation rarely equalled than of the natural rebound of the spirit after so tense a strain. In another moment the seats were emptied and the multitude was flowing down the tiers—a veritable torrent of humanity—into the pit: there to be packed for a while in a solid mass before it could work its way out through the insufficient exits and so return again to our modern world.

And then the Roman Theatre—with a fresh legend of beauty added to the roll of its centuries—was left desert beneath the bright silence of the eternal stars.

SAINT-REMY-DE-PROVENCE, December, 1894.

THE END



FOOTNOTES

[1] Recipe for Poumpo: Flour, 101/2 oz.; brown sugar, 31/2 oz.; virgin olive oil (probably butter would answer), 31/2 oz.; the white and the yolk of one egg. Knead with enough water to make a firm paste. Fold in three and set to rise for eight or ten hours. Shape for baking, gashing the top. Bake in a slow oven.

[2] Vin cue, literally cooked wine, is made at the time of the vintage by the following recipe: Boil unfermented grape-juice in a well scoured cauldron [or porcelain-lined vessel] for a quarter of an hour, skimming thoroughly. Pour into earthen pans, and let it stand until the following day. Pour again into the cauldron, carefully, so as to leave the dregs, and boil until reduced to one-half—or less, or more, according to the sweetness desired. A good rule is to boil in the wine a quince stuck full of cloves—the thorough cooking of the quince shows that the wine is cooked too. Set to cool in earthen pans, and when cold bottle and cork and seal. The Provencal cooked-wine goes back to Roman times. Martial speaks of "Cocta fumis musta Massiliensis."

[3] The admirable edition of Saboly's noels, text and music, published at Avignon in the year 1856 by Francois Seguin has been reissued by the same publisher in definitive form. It can be obtained through the Librarie Roumanille, Avignon.

[4] As yet (1902) these high hopes have not been fully realized. In the past eight years dramatic performances repeatedly have been given in the Orange theatre, and always with a brilliant success; but their establishment as fixtures, to come off at regular intervals, still is to be accomplished.

[5] The dimensions of the theatre are: width, 338 feet; depth, 254 feet; height of facade and of rear wall of stage, 120 feet; radius of auditorium, 182 feet.

[6] The conventions of the Greek theatre—and, later, of the Roman theatre—prescribed that through the great central portal kings should enter; through the smaller side portals, queens or princesses (on the left) and guests (on the right); from the portals in the wings, natives of the country (on the left) and strangers (on the right). The conventional entrances from the wings arose from the fact that the spectators in the Dionysiac theatre, on the Acropolis, saw beyond the stage on the one side the white houses of Athens and on the other the plains of Attica: and so to them the actors coming from the Athenian side were their own people, while those entering from the side toward Attica were strangers. In the modern French theatre the "court" and "garden" entrances still preserve this ancient tradition.

* * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Obvious printing errors were repaired; these changes are listed below. Other variation in hyphenation is as in the original text.

Felibrien changed to Felibrien "it was the drink of the young Felibrien poets"

builded changed to built "long before Lyons was built or Paris even thought of"

THE END