Mob Scenes: Their Generic Limitations

Mob Scenes: Their Generic Limitations Aureliu Weiss* On December 23, 1907, the curtain of the Théâtre des Arts rose on a play by an unknown author. It was Le grand soir, a three-act play by the Polish writer Leopold Kampf— banned in Germany and given a short while earlier at a German-language theatre in America. 1 Initially few spectators would have been prejudiced in the play’s favor. However, from scene to scene, from one act to the next, an increasing fervor gripped the spectators. Swept away by the emotion of the play, they drowned the last speech with a prolonged ovation, adding, so to speak, a final exclamation mark to the cries of the heroine Anna, who, a moment earlier, had given the pre-arranged signal for the outbreak of a bloodbath: “Hear the bell ring, ring, ring! . . . March on, my brothers! . . . It’s the blood bell! . . . March on! . . . And on and on!” These inflammatory exhortations were not addressed to the people in the street who had perpetrated the massacre, but to the invisible mobs who, in the heroine’s imagination, were to exploit the disorder and annihilate the regime. Up to that moment no multitude whatso­ ever had taken over the stage; the audience had seen only individuals preparing the moment of bloody conflict when the role of the people was to begin. But, while remaining invisible, this mass was nonetheless present, constituting a kind of imaginary backdrop on which the sense and spirit of the action unfolded. If there had been a sequel to this play, the revolutionary mob would have been its hero; but such a sequel has never been conceived for the stage, and it is more than likely that Kampf never thought of it. However, how much stronger would have been the effect of an outburst of the mob in comparison with the outburst of a few fanatics! In May, 1893, at the time of the Paris production of Gerhard Haupt­ mann’s Die Weber Antoine noted in his Souvenirs sur le Théâtre libre, “Hauptmann, who had marshalled all of literary young Germany on his side, had obtained the removal of the imperial ban. Here, contrary to what I was expecting, this play of revolt above all resounded as a cry of despair and misery; from act to act the excited audience kept cheering. In the fourth act, when the mob breaks into the manu- * The late Aureliu Weiss is the author of several important books and essays on the drama and dramatic theory. 254 Aureliu Weiss 255 facturer’s home, the effect of terror was so intense that the entire orchestra section rose. The last scene, with the death of Old Hilse in the crossfire and the noise of the mob, finished amid cheers.” No other proof could have brought out more eloquently how the furious cries of a delirious mob, struggling on stage, are capable of awaking corresponding emotions in a crowd of spectators. However, while the orchestra section had risen in fear of a criminal attack, their strong presentiments, forestalled, were not to be confirmed be­ cause the misery-ridden mob of workmen did not know what to do next. Timid and disoriented, the mob had not yet reached the stage where habitual inhibitions give way to the frenzy of disorder. After a brief ineffectual appearance the mob withdrew, and only in the course of the fifth act did revolt burst out, powerful and dominant, when the mob of weavers saw itself at grips with the forces trying to subdue it. The riot itself took place on the street. It remained invisible. Only the tumult and shouts reached the spectators. The reaction was im­ mediate, but the dreadful street fighting was off-stage. Why didn’t the German dramatist extract from the movement of the raging masses all the possible inherent effects? Wouldn’t the terror have acted with much more intensity if the revolt had taken place beneath the spectators’ eyes? To be sure, the author of Die Weber hardly had at his command the technical capabilities from which so many modern playwrights benefit; he could forego an effect which others would not have hesitated to...