Mr. Fallon on the Theatre of Ideas

Irish Jesuit Province

Mr. Fallon on the Theatre of IdeasAuthor(s): Arthur LittleSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 72, No. 858 (Dec., 1944), pp. 508-515Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515325 .

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508

Mr. Fall?n on the Theatre of Ideas By Arthur Little, S.J.

FOR many years I have been reading Mr. Gabriel Fallon's articles with admiration and agreement. It was, there

fore, mildly shocking to find myself dissenting from his article on the Theatre of Ideas. One or two people had been

speculating on the advantages for this country of a theatre of ideas on the model of Ibsen's with the sole essential difference that ours was to be a theatre of good ideas. Nojv, Mr. Fall?n

roundly condemns the whole idea of a theatre of ideas as a bad idea. I cordially agree with his rejection of Shaw's or Ibsen's

principles. But when he condemns their method in such

unqualified terms he stirs me to protest. In condemning the theatre of ideas, I ask, is he not condemning the idea of the theatre ? I confess that for one who in practice cannot visit the

professional theatre at all, thus to dispute the opinion of the

country's foremost dramatic critic, is like the rebuke of a clown to the ringmaster. But then even the clown may see a few things unseen by the ringmaster, if only because he sometimes stands on his head.

First of all it is necessary to know what we are talking about* Mr. Fall?n does not precisely define what he means by a theatre of ideas. What I understand by it (and what I think Ibsen aimed at) may be explained in terms of its function. The function of a theatre of ideas I take to be the use of the resources of the theatre to present an implicit argument or reasoned case for the truth of an idea. It is opposed to the poetic theatre of the

Greeks or Shakespeare, The function of the poetic theatre is to present a vision 6f an idea as exemplified in action and by



MR. FALL?N ON THEATRE OF IDEAS 509

imaginative communication of the experiences of the characters

to make the audience feel the truth of the idea. Now I contend that both of these functions are as legitimate on the stage as the novel and the epic are in literature.

To establish this contention we must consider the crucial ques tion : Under what conditions, if any, is the theatre a propei

place for the exposition of an argument or, if you will, for pro paganda ? This question I now propose to consider.

There are three ways in which I can conceive an argument to

be presented in a theatre. Not alFof them may turn out to be

legitimate uses of the theatre.

(1) First of all, the argument may be presented with complete detachment from the speakers. Their characters and fortunes

may be completely irrelevant to the force with which their

arguments will strike the audience. They may not be revealed at all, so that the speakers will only fulfil the function of loud

speakers and have just as impersonal an effect on their broad cast. If one were to stage Berkeley's dialogue, Hylas and

Fhilonous, one .would perfectly illustrate this way of argument, for its characters are deliberately without character. Even the

Platonic dialogues might, for the most part, be put in the mouths of any individuals in any place and time without affecting the force of their arguments. The Apology is an exception and, to

a far lesser extent, the Symposium and the Ph do. But

generally the dramatic elements in Plato are but a picturesque background t?o his dialectics. In this first way of presenting an

argument the speaking characters are mere telephones, machines

of communication between a lecturer or writer and his audience.

This way I call the way of pure dialogue. (2) The second way in which an argument may be staged is by

showing the effect of an idea on the character of its exponent. The speaker may show in his words how an idea has coloured all



510 THE IRISH MONTHLY

his other ideas and emotions, illuminating and directing nis mind, or confusing and misdirecting it by darkening it with prejudice. In that way, apart from any actual words used to defend the idea, the kind of character that it produces becomes an implicit argu

ment for or against it. The argument is more vivid if the character produced by one idea is contrasted against that pro

duced by another. Moreover, when, as here, character has to be

revealed visual representation is necessary for complete fulfilment of that purpose. The insight into character given by a speaker's features and dress, his changing expressions, gestures, and

deportment, can only be fully obtained in the theatre. Even to hear a character on the stage exclaim indignantly:

" I never

interfere with anything ' ' at the very moment when he sits down

on the dog, is to feel a delightful shock of understanding that can never be conveyed by any words. Admittedly, there are whole

tracts of Shaw's plays in which nothing happens. But even in these is represented, and visibly, something that has happened. For Shaw knew (perhaps discovered) that a man's thoughts are

often the most active, the most dramatic, thing about him. In time they make the man, though never make him as active as

they are. The body is a lazy pupil of the soul. No world-builder ever builds a world outside of his mind. No musician ever can

write down all the chords he hears in imagination. No lunatic is ever so mad in his actions as in his thoughts. But this internal drama can only be represented externally in its after-effects, in

the action or habit of action that it prompts. Nevertheless, this external representation is a dramatic representation though of a

drama that may have passed. If Desmond McCarthy is right in

calling Shaw's characters waxworks, or devoid of any recog

nisably human characters (though personally I wish that half my

acquaintances were half as lively), then Shaw is a bad example. But still it remains true that to make the personal characters



MR. FALL?N ON THEATRE OF IDEAS 511

revealed by the speakers themselves in speech an implicit plea for or against the ideas they express is a possible way of present

ing an argument on the stage. This way I call the way of dramatic dialogue.

(3) The third way in which an argument may be staged is by showing the effect of an idea on the fortunes and destinies of its exponents or their associates. By showing certain

situations as necessarily consequent on the adoption of an idea in

practical life, on "

living up to one's principles ", one can

indicate the inherent soundness or folly of the idea or principles. This method has been employed by satirists like Moli?re (surely a precursor of the theatre of ideas) and in many novels to propa

gate useful truths. Caleb Williams (if anyone now ever reads

that superb novel) is an indictment of inhumanity in the treat ment of prisoners. Paul Bourget's novel, Le Divorce, simply relates a realistic and commonplace case of divorce and, without

any explicit argument whatever, lets us see that the consequences

of divorce foretold by Catholic moralists follow on it with the

inevitability of fate. Joseph O'Neill's book, Land Under

England (foolishly written off by some reviewers as a silly

thriller), shows imaginatively, but with unanswerable logic, the

psychological effects of Communism or any other totalitarianism,

which is simply the idea of planning pushed to its fatal extreme.

This method is certainly open to the stage also. It merely con

sists in revealing the value of an idea, not necessarily with any

spoken commentary whatever, by representing the actions into

which people are naturally led by the circumstances consequent on its adoption as a practical policy. This way of arguing an idea I call the way of drama.

Now to assess the artistic legitimacy of these ways of argument in the theatre I assert this principle : Any function belongs pro

perly to the theatre that can be performed through the theatre




and its proper resources and not so well in any other way. And in further explanation I assert that a subject that can best be

expressed through the resources of the theatre is a dramatic sub

ject, in other words any subject that requires for its perfect expression the visible representation of human beings in action.

When we apply this principle to each of the three ways of pre senting an argument enumerated we find that the first is wholly illegitimate on the stage. It would lose nothing by being

broadcast or even written. The second way is justified or at least excused, for the argument gains in force from the visible

representation of the speakers. Nevertheless, it is unsatisfactory and should disquiet a critical audience, for it neglects to take

advantage of the chief property of the stage, which is to repro duce the external actions and situations of life. To show men as

talkers and nothing else is to hold a distorting mirror up to nature. This way may be tolerated for brief periods in a play but it seems generally agreed that Shaw has too much of it.

But the third way is so perfectly dramatic that it must be

part of the proper function of the stage. To see an idea produc

ing its effects in practice is to recognise the truth about it with a vividness that no words can convey. It may be that this way

is capable of being abused, of charming an audience into assent

ing to an unsound idea on specious but chimerical grounds ; but no other way of arguing can so masterfully obsess the imagination

and hold the attention. And it is a way of argument that the

theatre and only the theatre can employ with full effectiveness.

So part of the function of the stage is a theatre of ideas in the sense of dramatic argument. It is nothing against this conclusion

that the theatre of ideas has in tKe past been abused by being made a vehicle for-moral poison, or that its writers have com

mitted faults against sound dramatic principles. Nor because

Communists falsely think that propaganda is the only purpose



MB. FALL?N ON THEATRE OF IDEAS 518

of a theatre does it follow that Christian propaganda may not be one of its legitimate uses. The theatre of ideas must not be con demned because of its accidental associations in the past. But it

must be respected for its essential achievement in the past, its terrible success. The catastrophe of Ghosts, where the mother

murders her neurotic son at his own request, is so truly dramatic

that it must move anyone, him who shares Ibsen's moral out

look to tears, him who doesn't to nausea, but everyone in some

way. Mr. Fall?n admits the truth of the statement that the

banging of the door in A Doll's House echoed throughout Europe. For the moral anarchy of the one-eyed philosophers who sought to outlaw law, Nietschze's transvaluation of all

val?es that is also the norm of morality attributed to Satan in Paradise Lost, was heard by the unphilosophic public chiefly through the theatre of ideas and thence generated the moral recklessness that has released our presept troubles. I write in the hope that this tremendous weapon, the theatre of ideas, that has proved its power in the service of error, may be turned to

its proper purpose in the cause of truth.

Meanwhile Mr. Fall?n puts his argument against it in his second article, and it is an argument of intense interest and

weight. He writes: "

The whole case against the theatre of

ideas (whether good or bad) is that it tends to make the dramatist distort his ideas of reality in order that he may give his ideas free

play ". I take it that his argument is based on the often observed

paradox that a good play is written by the characters themselves.

A playwright determines his characters and their situation at the

beginning. The subsequent development is taken out of his

hands, for it is simply the succession of actions logically conse

quent (or more accurately normally probable) when people of

such types are placed in the given situation. The playwright starts with characters, therefore, and a situation as the embryo




of his work ; he thus predestines his climax, but it is the

characters, not he, who achieve it by organic development. If

he starts with an idea, says Mr. Fall?n in effect, he will coerce his characters out of their natural reactions into those that will evince the soundness of his thesis. The theatre of ideas is a

menace to that fidelity to typical psychology, or, as Aristotle

says, to the universal, that is dramatic truth.

Now I reply that this is only true if the thesis of the play is false. Certainly, if I am to represent a practice that in fact is disastrous to human nature as beneficial to it I must distort my picture of human nature or (a subtle device) conceal some of the relevant truth about it. But if I represent that really disastrous

practice as really disastrous then I can represent it in the actions into which it really would lead normal human beings. More

over, the truth in real life of the connection between the practice and its results will be the proof of its disastrousness in real life.

Thus, if my thesis is the evil of drunkenness I have only to take an ordinary family and make one of its members an alcoholic. I

can then let the characters themselves conduct the rest of the

play assured that their natural reactions will manifest the evil effects of drunkenness, since it really is an evil. But if my thesis is that no man can take a drink and remain an honest man, then

I shall have to bully my characters into exaggerating their natural behaviour sufficiently to make my thesis even momentarily

plausible ; for it is in fact false. The engaging play, Ten Days in a Bar-room, has, I believe, some such thesis. It is true that a

playwright may argue even a sound idea on the stage by trim

ming the behaviour of his characters to his own purpose, just as one might produce an invalid abstract argument for the immor

tality of the soul or any other truth. But it is not necessary that a theatre of good ideas at least should convince its audience other wise than by illustrating the truth of its ideas by imaginative



MB. FALL?N ON THEATBE OF IDEAS 515

experiment on the lives of characters that are really typical. Granted the intellectual integrity of the playwrights, I cannot see how a theatre of good ideas should not respect and embody all the dramatic values for which Mr. Fall?n rightly contends.

So it is time to state the fundamental reason of my interest in this question. This country is teeming with ideas and, generally,

where they are important they are sound ones. But it has seemed

to some observers that most of us have not really seen how sound

our ideas are, that we have unnecessarily weak grounds for hold

ing them and such as might not stand firm in face of revolu

tionary propaganda. We cannot, if we are to remain a

democracy, exclude such propaganda, and few thoughtful people would like to change that policy. The problem then is how to induce people to seek knowledge of the logical foundations of their principles, how to get them to feel the need of philosophical justification for their way of life. Now, people are moved to think out the soundness of an idea when the importance of its truth to their daily lives and prosperity becomes palpable or

experienced. If they merely hear the idea defended by abstract

arguments they will gladly acquiesce, but they are apt to con

tinue to assent to it on those grounds alone to which they are

habituated. Now one way of discovering the truth of ideas

palpably is to put them in practice and so become convinced of their evil* if they are evil, experimentally ; this, though effective, is obviously a disastrous way of learning the disastrousness of

error. The other way is to discover the evil of an idea

imaginatively, palpably indeed but innocuously, for it is to observe its working out in the lives of fictitious persons. The

theatre of ideas, therefore, and (less impressively) the novel with a purpose are natural means for teaching people to think by

means of object lessons. It is unwise to spike the guns of the

enemy when they can be turned against hijn.



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Mr. Fallon on the Theatre of Ideas