which they splayed after the signing of the Armistice was even more despicable than their bullying during the S four years of our imprisonment. The Commandant of Berlin cam into the Camp and, after making a speech apologising for all the brutalities of the past four years, tried to raise a cheer for the German people; but on this occasion—and it was almost the only one-the German addressing us was not cheered. The prisoners simply grinned and held their peace. Each of us was sent home armed with a pamphlet from the Ruhleben Soldiers Council, beseeching us to tell the people of England what really splendid people the Germans were, asking us to see that food was sent to them, and speaking of u in a most laudatory way. The thing that tickled u most was that they praised us because our spirits hai never been broken; and yet the members of the Ruhleber Soldiers' Council were the very men who had done thei worst to break them. That pamphlet was the crowning humour of our internment.

ERIC FARMER.

e

Art. 9-THE PLAYS OF THE BROTHER ÁLVAREZ QUINTERO.

1. Comedias Escogidas de Serafín y Joaquín Álvarez Five vols. Madrid: Biblioteca Renaci

Quintero.

miento, 1910 and 1911.

2. El Último Capitulo, Paso de Comedia. Madrid: Sociedad de Autores Españoles, 1910.

3. Herida de Muerte, Paso de Comedia; Puebla de las leb Mujeres, Comedia en Dos Actos; El Hombre que hace reir, Monologo. Madrid: Velasco, 1910–12.

Mundo, Mundillo... Comedia en Tres Actos; MalvaSpe loca, Drama en Tres Actos; Sin Palabras, Comedia en Un Acto. Biblioteca Renacimiento, 1912–13.

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And other Works by the same Authors.

OUR country is just now in the midst of a Renaissance, which is most strikingly manifested in the department of the Arts. Thus spoke the well-known Spanish authoress, Doña Blanca de los Rios, in a speech delivered at the inauguration of a statue of Menéndez y Pelayo at the National Library at Madrid in the summer of 1917; and I scarcely think that any one who has followed recent developments in Spain will be inclined to dispute her statement. And, if this be so, what more natural thạn that this renewal of youth and vigour in the arts should display itself conspicuously in drama-in the field, that is, in which the Spanish genius has of old time found its favourite and most complete expression? It is true that the Spanish theatre was never at any time quite so slavishly under French influence as was our own during some of the later decades of last century; and that for at least a hundred years back it has never lacked, not merely able playwrights, but characteristically Spanish dramatists who were men of genius. It were perhaps as profitable to demand popularity in this country for a painting of Murillo's vaporoso period as for a tragedy of Zorrilla's. But that is not Zorrilla's affair. He knew his own countrymen and could captivate them-at times with claptrap, and at times with inspired verse and lofty re-incarnation of their country's golden past. Were there no moments, I might ask, when our own so much greater dramaturge was equally indulgent? With more

of culture and less violent inequality than Tenorio,' Echegaray has not fared much better among ourselves; for the audience which could claim to enjoy the radically un-English Dame aux Camélias' has not clamoured for more repetitions of 'El Gran Galeoto.' Was it that star names were wanting from the Echegaray playbill, or that our great and just respect for French art is an exclusive sentiment? It may be that the day of the lately-deceased dramatic poet upon the English boards is yet to come. Meantime, what of his successors?

To pass from the storm and passion of Galeoto' to the serene domesticity of the Álvarez Quintero theatre is like passing from tempestuous seas into a land-locked bay, where winds and waves may ruffle a dead surface, or excite to an exhilarating opposition, but possess no power to ravage or to wreck. Indeed, in the latest catalogue of the authors' works, a list of over seventy pieces contains but two dramas,' 'La Pena' and 'Malva loca,' and not a single tragedy, the remainder being made up of comedies, zarzuelas, sainetes, and so forth It is with El Genio Alegre,' then, that we shall have t do throughout these pages-a spirit of liveliness and contentment, which passes at times into pensiveness an pathos, and at times into a subdued passion, as in 'L Zagala' ('The Country Girl'), 'El Amor que pasa,' Nent Teruel,' but scarcely beyond these points; and a spirit o temperate liveliness, too, which, if it now and then enter the region of broad farce, as in 'El Ojito Derecho,' neve for a moment loses sight of its true object of painting manners and illustrating character. And this last-named characteristic it is which gives, as I believe, to all tha the Quintero brothers have written its sterling value a art. They are never anxious, as so many playwright are, to raise a laugh for the laugh's sake; never visibly solicitous, as Hugo and Sardou used to be, to thrill enthral, electrify, their audience. On the contrary, their one preoccupation is to get their characters exhibited and let them work out their destinies for themselves.

In this connexion, let us begin with a word or two a to the form of the Quintero drama, and its relation to the dramatic movement in other European countries. Its will be remembered, then, that, following upon the school of Augier, Sardou, Dumas fils, there arose in

France a school of dramatists-of which Henri Lavedan may be chosen as representative-who aimed at discarding, or as far as possible eliminating from their plays, what was obviously artificial or belonging to theatrical convention or device. Scenic exaggeration, præternaturally witty dialogue, the coup de théâtre, and the like-it was felt that to such things as these too much had been sacrificed, and that they were fast losing their hold upon that very public which, as was supposed, could not do without them. There had been a movement against these things as long ago as when 'L'Ami Fritz' of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian was performed at the Comédie Française, with Coquelin in the name-part. But it was not the main movement of the day, and it did not suffice to 'kill-which, after all, means little more than to put out of fashion-the things which it discountenanced. Perhaps it was Hugo, that great master of cliché, who, just as by his romantic excesses he had paved the way for Zola, struck a harder blow at stage conventionality than any other writer. For it is the men who do a doubtful thing conspicuously well that, in the long run, reveal its weakness.

That light air blew

Some quarter of a century ago, then, the sails of the dramatic ship (if I may use the figure) were hanging flaccid and unfilled, and the seamen were whistling for a wind, when a light air coming from the north set their craft in motion once more. from Bergen, and in less time almost than it takes to write of it, had developed into a stiff breeze, nay, half a gale. I say half a gale advisedly; for, if Ibsen failed to make his view of life acceptable, he at least did much to modify, and, I believe, improve the technique of the theatre. So that, whilst rejecting his morbid psychology, his dramatis persona of neurotics and degenerates, and his preferential treatment of the problems of bankrupt human relationships, it is from him that later dramatists have learnt much of their less complicated methods of procedure, their more fearless devotion to truth, their

less dependence

reliance upon fact. Among these later dramatists, I include Shaw and Galsworthy and Houghton, no less than Brieux and Donnay, and-though on the face of it nothing could well be less like Ibsen than their comedies

upon stage convention and greater

-the brothers Álvarez Quintero, whose earliest technique is already an advance upon that of Pérez Galdós in, for example, such a well-made and successful comedy as 'La de San Quintín,' produced in 1894.

Among the Quintero plays now before me, the earliest is 'El Ojito Derecho,' produced at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in 1897. It consists of a single scene, in which three characters-the Seller, the Buyer, and the Agent of the latter—haggle over a wretched donkey, which, by the owner's account, is his ojito derecho, the apple of his eye. After prolonged bargaining, the beast, for which fifty dollars had been asked, is sold for five dollars and five reals; and, the purchaser having ridden off upon him, Agent and Seller reveal their true relationship by falling into each other's arms, with mutual congratulation, and going off to drink together. For, small as is the price realised by the donkey, it is much more than he is worth! This trifle is in the picaresque tradition; and all who know Spanish street-life must do justice to its inimitable truth to character. It has a full share of the Quintero quality of lending itself to clever acting. With it may be classed the sainete, or one-act picture of local manners, 'El Patinillo' ('The Farmyard'), produced at the Teatro de Apolo twelve years later. This richlycoloured painting of southern life sets before us the conversation and the interests, no longer of rascals, but of rustics, bronzed and beaming with good-nature, such as gather round the 'Bacchus' of Velasquez, and includes the highly characteristic scene of distributing alms to the beggars. Such modicum of plot as is required to hold these things together is supplied by the story of the tyrant farmer's pretty daughter, and her love for a beau sabreur who is quartered in the neighbourhood.

As a play purely of peasant life, El Patinillo' is perhaps exceptional, but there are comparatively few of the Quintero comedies into which peasant characters are not introduced. And though, in conformity with the limitations of their art, the brothers deal only with the sunnier side of rustic life, they have painted the countryman of southern Spain with a positive certainty of touch which recalls that of Maupassant in his portraiture of Norman peasantry. Here is an example from