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PAUL KAUVAR; OR, ANARCHY

STEELE MACKAYE

When one realizes the sociological purpose behind Steele Mackaye's "Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy," it is interesting to note how inefficient the old form of drama was to carry anything more than the formal romantic fervour. Compared with John Galsworthy's treatment in "Strife" and "Justice," it makes one glad that realism came and washed away all the obscuring claptrap of that period. Daly, Boucicault, and their generation were held firmly in its grip; they could not get away from it, and they were justified in their loyalty to it by the insistent claim "The Two Orphans" and "The Lady of Lyons" had upon the public. All the more credit, therefore, that Bronson Howard, David Belasco, and James A. Herne escaped it; had the latter completely freed himself of melodrama, his plays would be better known to-day, better capable of revival, because of the true greatness of their simple realistic patches.

Mackaye's mind was large, resourceful, daring--both in the opinions it upheld, and the practical theatrical innovations it introduced into the theatre, like the double stage for the little Madison Square playhouse, in New York, which was the precursor of such modern paraphernalia as came later with the foreign revolving stages. He always stood on the threshold of modernism, advocating those principles which were to fructify in the decades to follow him. Such pioneer spirit was evident in his ardent advocacy of Delsarte methods of acting; his own work as an actor was coloured and influenced by the master whose pupil he became in the early years of his career. When one recalls the methods of Wallack, and his shy approach toward anything which was "natural," it seems very advanced to hear Mackaye echoing the Delsarte philosophy. This advocacy was nowhere better demonstrated than when, at a breakfast given him at the New York Lotos Club, he talked on the rationale of art for two hours, and held spell-bound the attention of Longfellow, Bryant, Louis Agassiz, James J. Fields, E.P. Whipple, Edwin Booth and others. He once said:

A man to be a true actor must not only possess the power to portray vividly the emotions which in any given situation would be natural to himself, but he must study the character of the man whom he impersonates, and then act as that man would act in a like situation.

There were no half-way measures about Mackaye; things of the theatre and principles of the theatre caught and held his interest. At the very last of his life, while he was at work on his "Spectatorus," which foreran the American idea of a Hippodrome, and which might have, in years to come, happily housed his son Percy's "Caliban," he was at the same time attempting to combine with it an educational aspect which would lift it above the mere spectacular. The symbolical notes which he handed his son--who was then a mere boy--for the writing of a Chorus, show the profound approach he took to all his work. Such seriousness is one of the consuming traits of Percy, whose sense of humour is probably better developed than that of his father, and whose sway of literary expression is fuller.

For none of Steele Mackaye's dramas were written with any idea of being read. They were all constructed by one fully alive to the theatre and its demands. In view of this, it is surprising how well "Paul Kauvar" flows in type. The minor editorial changes made for this edition by Mr. Percy Mackaye are based on several manuscripts, and the result is the first authentic text of the play. Steele Mackaye was always gripped in fascination by mob psychology, always eager to write of the Reign of Terror. The version here used is the mature one, given its premi?re at Buffalo, New York, May 30, 1887. But Mr. Percy Mackaye is authority for the statement that while his father was studying with Delsarte, in Paris, he became enamoured of the Revolution, and there are two manuscripts extant, "The Denouncer" and "The Terror," which indicate that he was chipping away at his theme very early in life. He recast these sketches in the summer of 1875, while at Brattleborough, Vt., where he had a cottage on the Bliss Farm, familiar now to Rudyard Kipling lovers because of the fact that here, too, Kipling wrote, at a later day.

In correspondence with Mr. Percy Mackaye, it is significant to hear him insisting on his father's change in sociological bearing having taken place while writing "Paul Kauvar." Timeliness was given to its initial presentment through the fact that at the moment some Chicago anarchists had been on trial, and were condemned to death. Writing of the incident, William Dean Howells recalls that:

At the house of Judge Pryor, in 1887, several of us came together in sympathy with your father, who was trying--or had vainly tried--to get the United States Supreme Court to grant the Chicago anarchists a new trial. With your father I believed that the men had been convicted on an unjust ruling, and condemned for their opinions, not for a proven crime. I remember your father's wrathful fervour, and the instances he alledged of police brutality.

In a published interview, Mackaye expressed his concern for the case; but he likewise was reticent about making theatre capital out of it. He is reported to have said:

The play was first called "Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy." Then I thought "Anarchy" would be the best title, and under that I produced it in Buffalo. After its production, the Chicago anarchists were hanged, and, to avoid a possible charge of trading on that event, I went back to my first title. Later, however, the subtitle, "Anarchy," was gradually reduced to smaller lettering and finally dropped.

It was not as a playwright alone that his friends honour Mr. Mackaye. It may be said of him with strict justice that he is one of the few men of our day who have brought to the much-abused theatre the intelligence, the skill, the learning and the genius that it so much needs in an era of speculators and buffoons. He has always been able and willing to take the pen or the rostrum, whether at Harvard or at Steinway Hall, to expound the principles upon which he has so assiduously worked for the past fifteen years.

Mackaye had chosen his theme in the same spirit that Judge Conrad had selected "Jack Cade." He wished to measure the danger of liberty, but he did so indirectly, for the play does not abound in long philosophical flights of definition and warning. He himself confessed that the subject was defined only once, in these words, spoken by the hero to the woman he loves, when she is pleading with him to flee from France. He silences her by saying:

"I must stay to war with beasts who bring disgrace upon our noble cause. The torch of liberty, which should light mankind to progress, when left in madmen's hands, kindles that blaze of anarchy whose only end is ashes."

This indicates very distinctly that Mackaye's stand for the Chicago anarchists was not due to sympathy with their political monomania, but rather championed justice which, only when rightly used, will stem the tide of overwrought minds. With the execution of these men, he believed the cause of anarchy would be strengthened by the general impression gained of their martyrdom. His attitude was widely discussed, and "Paul Kauvar" became a visible demonstration of anarchy gone mad.

Of the component elements in his play, Mackaye left a full record. It is worth preserving as indication of his motive. In an interview he said:

For many years I have devoted myself to the mechanical, as well as the artistic side of the theatre, in the hope that by improving stage mechanism I might help to develop the artistic ensemble essential to high art results in the theatre. To this end I have made numerous inventions, and designed and built several theatres.

In this work I have been almost daily in contact with labourers and mechanics of every kind, and this contact stirred in me a very deep and sincere sympathy with these classes of men. I was led to realize the greatness of obligation under which the whole world is placed by the industry, ability and devotion to duty which characterizes by far the larger portion of the working classes.

At the same time, through relations intimate and confidential, I became conscious that certain foreign ideas--the natural outgrowth of excessive poverty and despotism in the Old World--were insinuating themselves into the hearts and minds of American labourers to an extent perilous to their own prosperity and to the very life of the republic.

In this country political corruption and the grasping spirit of corporations are constantly affording the demagogue or the dreamer opportunity to preach the destruction of civil order with great plausibility, giving scope to reckless theorists who have so often, in the world's history, baffled the endeavours of the rational and patient liberalists of their day.

This excited in me an ardent desire to do what little I could as a dramatist to counteract what seemed to me the poisonous influences of these hidden forces: to write a play which might throw some light on the goal of destruction to which these influences inevitably lead, whenever the agitation between capital and labour accepts the leadership of anarchism.

The time chosen by me was that of the Terror in France, 1793-94, during which the noble fruits of the French Revolution came near to annihilation, thanks to the supremacy, for a time, of a small band of anarchical men who, in the name of liberty, invoked the tyranny of terror.

On December 24, 1887, "Paul Kauvar" opened at the New York Standard Theatre, with Joseph Haworth and Annie Robe, and thereafter started on a stage career whose history is long and varied. It reached London, May 12, 1890, under the management of Augustus Harris, at the Drury Lane, with William Terriss and Jessie Millward heading the cast.

Nym Crinkle liked "Paul Kauvar" because of its vigourous masculinity. To him there was in it the "scintillant iron," "the strong arm, ruddy at times with the tongues of promethean fire." It is a big canvas, avowedly romantic. "It is," he wrote, after the play had been running in New York some months, "a work of great propulsive power, of genuine creative ingenuity, of massive dramatic effectiveness." On that account it is well worth the preserving and the reading.

NEW NATIONAL THEATRE.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

W.H. RAPLEY. Manager.

SATURDAY EVENING,... MAY 5th, 1888,

Grand Production for the Benefit of

The Statue of Washington, to be presented by

The United States to the Republic of France, of the latest and greatest New York success.

PAUL KAUVAR, by STEELE MACKAYE.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS GIVEN UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

THE FOLLOWING DISTINGUISHED COMMITTEE OF LADIES:

And the Following Executive Committee of Ladies and Gentlemen:

MRS. SENATOR JOHN P. JONES, REPRESENTATIVE H.H. BINGHAM, MRS. SENATOR THOMAS W. PALMER, MR. M.P. HANDY, MISS FLORENCE BAYARD, MR. F.A. RICHARDSON, SENATOR W.B. ALLISON, MR. W. STILSON HUTCHINS, SENATOR J.D. CAMERON, MR. D.R. McKEE, SENATOR JOHN T. MORGAN, MR. JAMES R. YOUNG, REPRESENTATIVE J.J. HEMPHILL, MR. W.F. O'BRIEN, and COL. THOMAS P. OCHILTREE.

THIS PROCUTION IS A TRIBUTE TO THE CAUSE FREELY OFFERED BY

And the Following Volunteer Cast.

GENTLEMEN:

LADIES:

DIANE DE BEAUMONT, daughter of the Duke Miss CARRIE TURNER NANETTE POTIN Miss HELEN MAR SCARLOTTE Miss LIZZIE RECHELLE

LADIES.

Miss Bunee. Miss Moore. Miss Becks. Miss Marshall. Miss Pierson. Miss Maguire. Miss Forster. Miss Gianetti. Miss Frozar. Miss Hughes. Miss Weltars. Mrs. Hughes. Miss Weeks. Miss Naylor. Miss Lavard. Miss Hearn. Miss Smith. Mrs. Boware. Miss Arnold. Mrs. Lack

GENTLEMEN.

Mart Townsend. Wm. Sharkey. Chas. Belmont. T. Mitchell. Henry Schaffer. Wm. Brown. H. Marks. B. Fisher. W.W. Waters. Geo. Masten. C.M. Mackay. Chas. Nuger. Geo. Turner. Frank Comstock. T. Jarvis. H. Frees. F. Daley. Wm. Chambers. S. Sullivan. J. Smith. F. King. F. Reynolds. E. Russell. Daniel Charles. R. Ryan. S.B. Caruth. J. Godfrey. S. Rosenthal. J. Sheehan. J. Sawyer. G.B. Merton. A. Goldsmith. R. Mansfield. G. Shaffer. P. Berger. Jas. O'Brien. Rufus Williams. C. Bird. J.J. Blake. Wm. Mack. Benj. Blons. H. Hamill. Chas. Marshall. C. Brady. John Kenny. W. Sullivan. H. Gordon. G. Harvey. Ben. Sharwood. F. Medina. M. Brickner. C. King. Al. Young. Ed. Ryerson. L.T. McDermott. J. Macarthy. Chas. Norman. E. Morrison. F. Allen. Geo. Hopper. F. Blake. J. Harris.

The Tableau of the "Dream" in the First Act represents

"THE TYRANNY OF TERROR."

SCENE--FRANCE. TIME. 1794.

The Tableau which concludes this performance, and rivals in power and beauty the famous dream scene of the first act, represents allegorically

"THE CONQUEST OF EVIL."

It is a poetic picture, full of deep thought and careful study. The central figure is that of the Angel of Conquest, with one foot upon the prostrate fiend Anarchy, holding high that irresistible weapon of progress, the Sword of Light. The fiend carries in his hands the Torch and Flag of Anarchy, and with these is about to sink into the Abyss of Darkness.

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