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Page 1
Such was the extent of Bunce's drama writing. His life was not cast in
the dramatic field, but rather in the publishing world. The plays
were done in his early manhood. But he was pledged in interest to the
theatre, and there are many significant criticisms and descriptions
in print which convey an excellent impression of his attitude toward
plays, players, and acting.
Bunce was a self-made man, with an excellent grasp of literature,
which served him well in his various literary ventures. His mind was
cast in channels of originality, and the history of book publishing
in New York must needs consider the numerous suggestions, which,
as literary adviser at different times for the houses of Harper and
Appleton, he saw to successful fruition. In 1872, he became Editor of
_Appleton's Journal_, and it is to the files of this magazine we must
turn to extract his frank reaction to the theatre of his day. He wrote
novels, stories, essays, editorials, everything to win him the name of
journalist; once he had a publishing house of his own, doing business
under the firm name of Bunce & Co. He was always cordial toward every
move to further the literary interest of the country, and was among
the first to welcome the founding of the Authors Club. It may be that
his "Love in '76" was a by-product of a book written by him, in 1852,
and called "Romance of the Revolution."
Bunce wrote well on theatrical matters; he is much more vivid and
human than many a better-known critic. Here, for instance, is an
impression of the old Park Theatre, New York, in 1846.
"That was the time," he writes in "The Editor's Table" of _Appleton's
Journal_ for October, 1880, "when the theatre had a pit, where critics
and wiseacres were wont to assemble and utter oracular things about
the plays and the performers. The actors were in those days afraid
of the Pit, especially at the Park, of the fourth bench from the
orchestra, where the magnates of the pen sat watchful, and where old
Nestors of the drama delivered their verdicts in terms that no one
dared to gainsay. The Pit was entered by cellar steps, and through a
half-lighted, subterranean passage. Decorative art, as we see it now
in the full bloom of the Madison Square auditorium and Mr. Daly's
lobby, had not even given a hint of its coming."
In _The Galaxy_ for February, 1868, Bunce ventures to survey "Some
of Our Actors" from the standpoint of deploring the pre-Raphaelite
realism of the modern school. He scored the attempted "truth" and
"fidelity" of Matilda Heron, and, in considering Maggie Mitchell's
_Fanchon,_ he bespoke the cause of ideality, as necessary in _Fanchon_
as in _Juliet._ "Modern comedy acting," he declares, "is usually a
bright, brisk touch-and-go affair, suited to modern plays; but to the
mellow and artistic style of a former generation, it is as the light
claret wines, now so much in use, to crusty old port."
Except in the instances of our comedians, like Murdoch, with his
"lightness of manner, that grace, which I have described elsewhere as
snuffing a candle in a way to make you feel that snuffing candles is
the poetry of life;" Harry Placide, with whose retirement went the
retirement of _Sir Peter Teazle_ and _Sir Harcourt Courtley_, ("When
Placide and Gilbert are gone," he writes, "Sheridan will have to be
shelved"); Holland, with his intense fun in eccentric bits; Brougham,
without whom "The Rivals" is difficult to endure--apart from these the
stage of the time, to Bunce, was not all it should be. He valued
at their worth the romantic extravagances of the Wallack family;
he applauded the sound judgment, and deplored the hard manner of
Davenport; he viewed calmly what he regarded to be an overestimation
of Edwin Booth--one of the first criticisms of an avowedly negative
character I have seen aimed directly at this actor. In other words,
Bunce fought hard against the encroachment of the new times upon the
acting of his early theatre days. The epitome of his old-time attitude
is to be found in _Appleton's Journal_ for April 3, 1869. His better
mood was to be met with in his discussion of the players of Ellen
Tree's type. Here are his words of censure against the new order:
"If we old files are to be believed, the art of acting is dying out,
and the very tradition of the stage disappearing.... Very likely the
spirit, which in painting we call pre-Raphaelism, is obtaining its
influence on the stage, and that some of the actors are turning out of
doors the traditions and formal mannerisms of the schools, and going
back to nature and truth for their inspiration.... There were very
artificial methods, no doubt, among the old actors, but there was also
a very consummate knowledge of the art, a great deal of breadth,
force and skill, and a finished training, which the new schools do
not exhibit. In aiming to be natural, some of our actors seem to have
concluded that their profession is not an art. They grow heedless
in the delivery of language, weakening or obscuring its meaning, and
missing its significance; and in some way lose that rich and mellow
colouring that characterized the bygone performers. So marked is this,
that some of the old dramatic characters are abandoned altogether,
because in the hands of the Realists they fade away into ineffective
and colourless forms. The _Sir Peter Teazles_ and _Sir Anthony
Absolutes_ of the old comedy require indispensably the resources
of the old art, and no thin, water-gruel realism, so-called, can
personate them. In avoiding the declamatory Kembletonianism of the old
school, our actors are right enough; but they cannot safely disregard
the skill which sharpens and chisels, as it were, the sentences; nor
forego the care, study, precision and stern adherence to rules of art,
that marked the old stage."
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