* *

"A Midsummer Night's Dream."

I am not sure that Mr. GRANVILLE BARKER'S faithful followers are being
quite kindly entreated by him. He happens to have a keen sense of humour
and for some little while he has been trying, with a very grave face, to
see how much they will swallow. This time, everybody else except the
initiated can see the bulge in his cheek where his tongue comes.

The alleged faults of the old school, which the new was to correct, were
(1) an over-elaboration of detail in the setting; (2) a realism which
challenged reality. ("Challenge," I understand, is the catch-word they
use.) Both these qualities were supposed to distract attention from the
drama itself. The answer, almost too obvious to be worth stating, is
that the grotesque and the eccentric are vastly more distracting than
the elaborate; and that, if you only sound the loud symbol loud enough
the audience has no ear left at all for the actual words. As for the
"challenging" of reality the new school would argue that, as the stage
is a thing of convention to start with--artificial light, no natural
atmosphere or perspective, no fourth wall, and so on--all the rest
should be convention too. The answer, again almost too obvious, is that,
since the audience has to bear the strain of unavoidable convention, you
should not wantonly add to their worry. And, anyhow, the human figures
on your stage (I leave out fairies and superhumans for the moment) are
bound to challenge reality by the fact that they are alive. If Mr.
BARKER wants to be consistent (and he would probably repudiate so
Philistine a suggestion) his figures should be marionettes worked by
strings; and for words--if you _must_ have words--he might himself read
the text from a corner of the top landing of his proscenium.

[Illustration: _Hermia_ (Miss Laura Cowie). "I upon this bank will rest
my head."]

And the strange thing is that no one in the world has a nicer sense of
the beauty of SHAKSPEARE'S verse than Mr. BARKER. Indeed he protests in
his preface: "They (the fairies) must be not too startling.... _They
mustn't warp your imagination--stepping too boldly between SHAKSPEARE'S
spirit and yours._" (The italics are my own comment.) He is of course
free, within limits, to choose his own convention about fairies, because
we have never seen them, though some of us say we have. Mr. CHESTERTON
naturally says they can be of any size; Mr. BARKER says they can be of
any age f