Subsidies, Cinemas and Theatre Festivals

Irish Jesuit Province

Subsidies, Cinemas and Theatre FestivalsReview by: Gabriel FallonThe Irish Monthly, Vol. 66, No. 782 (Aug., 1938), pp. 553-558Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514385 .

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553

Sitting at the Play.

Subsidies, Cinemas and Theatre Festivals

By GABRIEL FALLON.

O NCE again the theatre has cried out for money. This

time it managed to secure as its advocate Mr. Padraic Colum, our distinguished poet and playwright. Speaking

at a meeting of the Women Writers' Club at the Gresham Hotel

(8-6-'38), Mr. Colum alleged that O'Connell Street had more cinemas than any other street in any capital in Europe. This

meant (he said) that a great sum of money was being exported, and that it was not bringing any return. To meet this deficit it

would be reasonable (said Mr. Colum) to ask the Corporation of Dublin to subsidise a theatre which would help to keep much of that money in the country.

This means to say (assuming that Mr. Colum was correctly reported) that much of the money which now finds its way out via the box-offices of our seven O'Connell Street cinemas might be kept in the country if only our Dublin Corporation would subsidise a theatre (presumably the Gate Theatre). Somehow or other, this is hard to believe. Money which passes out through our cinemas does so in purchase of a particular type of entertain ment, a type which the theatre cannot (in any sense) afford. If it is reasonable to assume that cinema-goers go to the cinema in search of entertainment, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they go there in search of that particular type of entertainment

which the cinema alone can offer. Surely then, it is quixotic



554 THE IRISH MONTHLY

to imagine that the giving of a subsidy to the theatre could have the effect of changing the requirements of our cinema-goers.

Would a municipal grant to a milk-bar have the effect of reduc

ing the takings on intoxicants? Already the State subsidises the theatre in this country, has

been subsidising the Abbey Theatre for some years back. Yet no appreciable decrease in cinema receipts has been observed dur ing that period. On the contrary, cinema receipts and cinemas

have increased considerably, while theatre profits (the Abbey's, at any rate) have been symbolized in four-figure deficits. So why press for further financial assistance for the theatre in the name

of the money that is going out through the cinemas? Why

throw good money after bad, so to speak? Why not just ask for a subsidy and leave it at that? Better still, why not say what it is proposed to do with the money? Or would that be just too, too commercial ?

" Cinema comfort at cinema prices," declares Lord Longford, "is my argument for popularising the theatre." No doubt that is the end to which Lord Longford would employ a subsidy. But can the theatre be popularised by the mere addition of cinema comfort at cinema prices? What hardened theatre-goer (and there are still a few left) expects cinema comfort in the theatre?

Was the Greek theatre comfortable? Well, Ovid tells us that the later Roman theatre was not. Indeed, it almost makes us kin

with him to hear him speak of the narrow space allotted to each spectator, " the knees of those behind pressing in the backs of

those in front. " The Elizabethan theatre, we know, was far from comfortable. But did all this discomfort matter f Did it make these theatres less popular? All the available evidence is to the contrary.

Again, does the cinema-goer go to the cinema merely for cheap comnfort's sake? Are wind-swept queues and the frequently



SUBSIDIES, CINEMAS AND THEATRES 555

crowded " standing-room only " comfortable? Surely, enter tainment lures the cinema-goer as well. Not " art " perhaps,

nor " despondent sociology " nor any of the many idiosyncrasies of our little uncommercial theatres. But entertainment at its

broadest, sometimes at its lowest, but entertainment, commerci ally offered and accepted. Above all, entertainment efficiently presented. Spectacle, a greater verisimilitude than the theatre can ever hope to achieve, and (latterly) fine acting. Something

more, then, than the comfort of a plush and gold fauteuil. Louise Rainer, perhaps, or Spencer Tracy or Charles Laughton or Oscar Homolka or Cedric Hardwicke or (why not?) Hop-Along Cassidy. Obviously, cinema comfort at cinema prices will not of itself serve to popularise the theatre. Something more is required.

" The theatre," said Lord Longford, " exists for an artistic or commercial purpose." Perhaps it was the reporter's fault, but here one feels inclined to ask: " What theatre for which pur pose?" However, this is clarified somewhat when Lord Long ford says: " A play need not make money to be an artistic suc cess, but it must have an audience." (The italics are mine.)

Certainly, a play must have an audience in order that it may be a play at all. And in the sense that a number of people have paid to see it, that play is commercial, no matter what the brow

measurement of these people may happen to be. In that sense the theatre (no less than the cinema) cannot avoid being commer cial. It is the business of a theatre to sell plays, no less than it is the business of a grocer to sell groceries, or of a railway-com

pany to sell transport. "c Artistic failure " in the theatre is merely a euphemistic name for bad business.

In an open letter to Mr. Somerset Maugham (The London Mercury, May, 1988), Dr. Robert Klein, the distinguished German producer, wr'ites as follows: " A play which one does



536 THE IRISH MONTHLLY

not think commnercial would better not have been put on at all.

All the effort seems so senseless. And there is nothing more sad than a theatre people do not come to. It was the revenge of un successful playwrights to invent the expression ' commercial '. If for nothing else, one should shoot them for this. The word did

more damage to the theatre than anything else. It tries to express contempt for success. To make success cheap. To make

the good play second-rate, and the successful manager not an artist but a poorish stockbroker in plays. There never was a

manager who said: ' I discovered a beautiful play; I'm sure it will fail. Quick, let's put it on.' Whoever puts on a play hopes it to be a success. Otherwise he wouldn't put it on. A play is

not bad because it is a success, and a play is not a masterpiece

because it is a failure." Dr. Klein's words call for no comment here.

Consider the example of a theatre-a little theatre-wvhich in the course of four years (1932-1936) has lost in mounting progres sion the sum of ?8,280. Its overhead expenses are not heavy. It has no star system, no heavy theatre staff on its wages list. Its actors are not overpaid. If 66,240 more people had gone into its half-crown seats, or 165,600 into its shilling ones, that theatre would have balanced its four years business. Without profit. Actually, its losses mean that 16,560 half-crown patrons, or 41,400 shilling patrons (whichever you prefer) abstained from going to that theatre each year, to the detriment of the theatre's solvency. Hardly a popular theatre, one would say. But con sider that these losses (?8,280) contain ?4,000 subsidy-what

were the losses before that subsidy was given? Were they greater or less than those of the four years 1982-36? And by whom were

they borne? Are these great losses (because for such a small concern as the Abbey these losses are great) the result of (a) the

unpopularity of the theatre, or (b) incompetent management?



SUBSIDIES, CINEMAS AND THEATRES 557

Truly, as Dr. Klein remarks, there is nothing more sad than a theatre people do not come to. By the time these notes appear in print the Abbey Theatre will be holding a Festival. Lectures and discussions on the theatre will be a special feature. These, it is announced, will take place every day during the Festival.

And yet, I dare swear, one of the subjects not chosen will be the Abbey Theatre's declining business. No one would be so rude as to discuss this all-important matter of the theatre's good house keeping. That would be inartistic, perhaps. Indeed, very rude people might see in this a parallel with Rome and Nero (and what an artist he was, by the same token !). It is difficult to believe that the Abbey Theatre does not want to make money. One feels sure that its playwrights would welcome better royalties, for instance. And that its players would like (as they deserve) bigger salaries. Yet, losses of ?1,206, ?1,531, ?2,523 and ?3,020 seem to be met with apparent equanimity. Is the theatre contemplating a quick quietus?

There are those who are thoughtless enough to say that any critic of the Abbey or of the Abbey's policy must necessarily be an enemy of the institution. That, of course, is foolishness. Mr. Seatn O'Faolain has recently criticised the Abbey with severity and justice, but it would be very wrong to say that Mr. O'Faolain was an enemy of the Abbey Theatre. In fact, it might be said (on the point of his criticism) that he could not love the Abbev half so well, loved he not the theatre more. What Mr. O'Faolain (and others) are merely striving to do is to prevent the Abbey from hastening its own end towards which the applause of the foolish (no less than its own bad housekeeping) seems to be unerringly driving it.

It is well then to consider these facts before permitting our selves the luxury of another theatre subsidy. One hopes that no exception will be taken to " ourselves ". Citizens have a right



558 THE IRISH MONTHLY

to know something of the manner in which their money is spent. Theatres, of course, are at perfect liberty to refuse either State or municipal assistance. Lord Longford, one observes, quarrels with the critics for " tearing to pieces " plays produced at the Gate and the Abbey. But does Lord Longford realise what additional criticism he invites if he accepts a subsidy? Criticism of the theatre by theatre critics generally arises from a love of theatre, but criticism of the foolish spending of public money

may bring the banker or the politician or the broker in. The thousands lost to the cinema may still be regained if only

the theatre will be honest with itself. It is useless to blame the cinema for the faults of the theatre. If the theatre wlshes to cap ture cinema audiences, it must be prepared (a) to entertain them, (b) to entertain them efficiently. It has at hand all the material

with which to do so. There are good plays (and good plays are entertaining plays) and (in this country) there is no dearth of great players. But, for a while at any rate, let us stop talking about " art ", and begin talking (and acting) about the theatre.

Mr. St. John Ervine was right when he said that creatures of celluloid will never prevail over living actors in a world of living men and women. Unfortunately, the living men and women of our Irish theatre seem to be dead to the fact that the power to save the theatre lies in their own hands. Our next theatre festival

may move to the ominous accompaniment of a muffled drum.



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Subsidies, Cinemas and Theatre Festivals