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2 THE THEATRE OF MAX REINHARDT

fact that very few persons outside Germany are

fully acquainted with the wide results which he

has attained. How many dramatic critics are

there in England who have surveyed the entire

ground which Max Reinhardt has covered, have

followed his daily experiments, have seen the

definite plan at which he is quietly working in

his own sphere of study ? As far as I know, not

more than two or three. It is therefore not

surprising that a misconception concerning the

nature of his activities should have arisen. Hence

some English critics do not view his work with

any great favour. It has, they think, an effect in

encouraging in this country a taste for mere

spectacle, and discouraging a taste for the drama.

Such critics emphasise, and very rightly, the

importance of promoting the drama first, before

all things, seemingly unaware that Reinhardt has

been doing this from the very start, and that,

strangely enough, a great deal of his popularity is

owing to that circumstance. They are not aware

that he has been searching for first principles, and

that in reintroducing impulse to the theatre, in

reawakening the quest for intimacy, in striving to

attain rhythmical unity, and in seeking to lift the

many and varied activities of the theatre out of the

local into the universal once more, he is inviting

the theatre to become that which it is fitted to

become, viz., a refined and highly efficient instrument

for receiving and transmitting the spirit of

the drama. In short, he has served the drama not

only by producing plays by all the most remarkable

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writers of the neo-Sturm und Drang period

PREFACE 3

through which Europe has just passed, but by

endeavouring to construct a theatre wherein he

could recapture the first fine rapture of the eternal

form of drama, and to restore that element which

alone can seize the spectator, and bring him nearer

to the profound secret of human existence. He

has, in fact, sought to widen and deepen the power

of the drama by preparing to give full play to its

primitive, religious, and eternal elements, believing,

no doubt, that the dramatic spirit resides in

the subconscious element in mankind, and finds

expression only through that element.

Probably students may derive the greatest advantage

from the stagecraftsmanship of Max Reinhardt

not by examining the strong evidences of German

culture and scholasticism underlying it, but by the

study of the personal element which it contains.

Max Reinhardt himself has brought impression and

impulse to our doors once more. His contribution

to the current reform of the theatre and the drama

in England cannot be overestimated when we

remember that without impression to awaken

impulse there can be no advance in the drama.

Eliminate these two elements and the drama

becomes as dull and wearisome as the literary and

moral theatre has made it.

It should be mentioned that owing to the unavoidable

postponement of the publication of this

book certain facts call for revision, and they are

accordingly dealt with in the " Supplementary

Chapter."

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HUNTLY CARTER.