Stage to screen
: Theatrical method from Garrick to Griffith
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STAGE TO SCREEN i THEATRICAL METHOD FROM 6ARRICE TO GRIFFITH A. NICHOLAS VARDAG HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE 1949 TO SPYROS P. SKOURAS
PREFACE The position of the motion picture in the evolution of the theatre of the world has yet to be determined. Much has been written in description and in critical analysis of the film. These studies spread roots like aerial plants through a fruitless vacuum. The atmosphere of nineteenth-century theatre has yet to be cleared and the proper source of cinema exposed. A new art form does not simply appear. In aesthetic as well as scientific and political areas the old dies as the new is born, the whole process being as in sistent as it is gradual. The time has come to see how the film fits into the evolutionary pattern of world theatre, how the blood stream of the screen was drawn from the stage, and how, under the pressure of this withdrawal, certain stage forms died upon the boards. The roots of a new art form are to be found in the sociological needs and tensions, in the spirit of the times, which sponsor its growth. This tension is so thoroughly woven into the cultural fabric that it can best be identified through its expression in the arts, in this case, in the related arts of theatre and of staging. In this fashion the spiritual, the sociological, and most of all, the aesthetic roots of the motion picture can be revealed through a composite study of both the early film and theatrical methods during the years leading to and surrounding its birth. The patterns within this period of theatrical history, as yet uncharted, must be traced by direct scrutiny of the spectacular promptbooks and the revealing periodical accounts of productions appearing during these years. From this body of source material the expression as well as the motivation of the forces, the social tensions, working behind the aesthetic strivings of the popular nineteenth-century stage, the early twentieth-century popular the atre, the early twentieth-century experimental producers the atre and finally the motion picture, will appear in their distinct vii PREFACE and special relationship. A more complete and accurate under standing of stage and screen will arise. I should like to acknowledge my gratitude to Professor Al lardyce Nicoll for his inestimable support of the ideas of this study. To Dr. William VanLennep, Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection, I am indebted for much valuable material. Untapped sources in that great collection eventually disclosed the use of cinematic devices upon the stage of the nineteenth century. To Miss Iris Barry, Curator of the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art, may I express appreciation for courtesy and con sideration in the arrangement of special showings of early Ameri can and foreign films. I am particularly grateful to Mr. Percy MacKaye, whose interest in my subject has made possible the use of material concerning the work of his father, Steele MacKaye, which otherwise might not have been available for presentation at this time. And for the careful editorial perusal of Professor Hubert C. Hef ier both the reader and myself will find, I am sure, good reason for gratitude. A. NICHOLAS VARDAC Palo Alto, California June 1947
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