“And what do you think of the performance as a performance?” asks B.
“Oh, as to that,” I reply, “I think what everyone who has seen the play must think, that it is a marvellous piece of workmanship.
“Experienced professional stage-managers, with all the tricks and methods of the theatre at their fingers’ ends, find it impossible, out of a body of men and women born and bred in the atmosphere of the playhouse, to construct a crowd that looks like anything else except a nervous group of broken-down paupers1 waiting for soup.
“At Ober-Ammergau a few village priests and representative householders, who have probably never, any one of them, been inside the walls of a theatre in their lives, dealing2 with peasants who have walked straight upon the stage from their carving3 benches and milking-stools, produce swaying multitudes and clamouring mobs and dignified4 assemblages, so natural and truthful5, so realistic of the originals they represent, that you feel you want to leap upon the stage and strangle them.
“It shows that earnestness and effort can very easily overtake and pass mere6 training and technical skill. The object of the Ober-Ammergau ‘super’ is, not to get outside and have a drink, but to help forward the success of the drama.
“The groupings, both in the scenes of the play itself and in the various tableaux7 that precede each act, are such as I doubt if any artist could improve upon. The tableau8 showing the life of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Eden makes a beautiful picture. Father Adam, stalwart and sunbrowned, clad in sheepskins, rests for a moment from his delving9, to wipe the sweat from his brow. Eve, still looking fair and happy—though I suppose she ought not to,—sits spinning and watching the children playing at ‘helping father.’ The chorus from each side of the stage explained to us that this represented a scene of woe10, the result of sin; but it seemed to me that the Adam family were very contented11, and I found myself wondering, in my common, earthly way, whether, with a little trouble to draw them closer together, and some honest work to keep them from getting into mischief12, Adam and Eve were not almost better off than they would have been mooning about Paradise with nothing to do but talk.
“In the tableau representing the return of the spies from Canaan, some four or five hundred men, women and children are most effectively massed. The feature of the foreground is the sample bunch of grapes, borne on the shoulders of two men, which the spies have brought back with them from the promised land. The sight of this bunch of grapes, we are told, astonished the children of Israel. I can quite understand its doing so. The picture of it used to astonish me, too, when I was a child.
“The scene of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem surrounded by the welcoming multitude, is a wonderful reproduction of life and movement, and so also is the scene, towards the end, showing his last journey up to Calvary. All Jerusalem seems to have turned out to see him pass and to follow him, the many laughing, the few sad. The people fill the narrow streets to overflowing13, and press round the spears of the Roman Guard.
“They throng14 the steps and balconies of every house, they strain to catch a sight of Christ above each other’s heads. They leap up on each other’s backs to gain a better vantage-ground from which to hurl15 their jeers16 at him. They jostle irreverently against their priests. Each individual man, woman, and child on the stage acts, and acts in perfect harmony with all the rest.
“Of the chief members of the cast—Maier, the gentle and yet kingly Christ; Burgomaster Lang, the stern, revengeful High Priest; his daughter Rosa, the sweet-faced, sweet-voiced Virgin17; Rendl, the dignified, statesman-like Pilate; Peter Rendl, the beloved John, with the purest and most beautiful face I have ever seen upon a man; old Peter Hett, the rugged18, loving, weak friend, Peter; Rutz, the leader of the chorus (no sinecure19, his post); and Amalie Deschler, the Magdalen—it would be difficult to speak in terms of too high praise. Themselves mere peasants—There are those two women again, spying round our door; I am sure of it!” I exclaim, breaking off, and listening to the sounds that come from the next room. “I wish they would go downstairs; I am beginning to get quite nervous.”
“Oh, I don’t think we need worry,” answers B. “They are quite old ladies, both of them. I met them on the stairs yesterday. I am sure they look harmless enough.”
“Well, I don’t know,” I reply. “We are all by ourselves, you know. Nearly everyone in the village is at the theatre, I wish we had got a dog.”
“Themselves mere peasants,” I repeat, “they represent some of the greatest figures in the world’s history with as simple a dignity and as grand a bearing as could ever have been expected from the originals themselves. There must be a natural inborn21 nobility in the character of these highlanders. They could never assume or act that manner au grand seigneur with which they imbue22 their parts.
“The only character poorly played was that of Judas. The part of Judas is really the part of the piece, so far as acting23 is concerned; but the exemplary householder who essayed it seemed to have no knowledge or experience of the ways and methods of bad men. There seemed to be no side of his character sufficiently24 in sympathy with wickedness to enable him to understand and portray25 it. His amateur attempts at scoundrelism quite irritated me. It sounds conceited26 to say so, but I am convinced I could have given a much more truthful picture of the blackguard myself.
“‘Dear, dear me,’ I kept on saying under my breath, ‘he is doing it all wrong. A downright unmitigated villain27 would never go on like that; he would do so and so, he would look like this, and speak like that, and act like the other. I know he would. My instinct tells me so.’
“This actor was evidently not acquainted with even the rudiments28 of knavery29. I wanted to get up and instruct him in them. I felt that there were little subtleties30 of rascaldom, little touches of criminality, that I could have put that man up to, which would have transformed his Judas from woodenness into breathing life. As it was, with no one in the village apparently31 who was worth his salt as a felon32 to teach him, his performance was unconvincing, and Judas became a figure to laugh rather than to shudder33 at.
“With that exception, the whole company, from Maier down to the donkey, seemed to be fitted to their places like notes into a master’s melody. It would appear as though, on the banks of the Ammer, the histrionic artist grew wild.”
“They are real actors, all of them,” murmurs34 B. enthusiastically, “the whole village full; and they all live happily together in one small valley, and never try to kill each other. It is marvellous!”
At this point, we hear a sharp knock at the door that separates the before-mentioned ladies’ room from our own. We both start and turn pale, and then look at each other. B. is the first to recover his presence of mind. Eliminating, by a strong effort, all traces of nervousness from his voice, he calls out in a tone of wonderful coolness:
“Yes, what is it?”
“Are you in bed?” comes a voice from the other side of the door.
“Yes,” answers B. “Why?”
“Oh! Sorry to disturb you, but we shall be so glad when you get up. We can’t go downstairs without coming through your room. This is the only door. We have been waiting here for two hours, and our train goes at three.”
Great Scott! So that is why the poor old souls have been hanging round the door, terrifying us out of our lives.
“All right, we’ll be out in five minutes. So sorry. Why didn’t you call out before?”
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1
paupers
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| n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 )；贫民；贫穷 | |
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2
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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3
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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7
tableaux
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| n.舞台造型，（由活人扮演的）静态画面、场面；人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 )；舞台造型；戏剧性的场面；绚丽的场景 | |
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8
tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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9
delving
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| v.深入探究，钻研( delve的现在分词 ) | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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11
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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13
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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14
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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15
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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16
jeers
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| n.操纵帆桁下部（使其上下的）索具；嘲讽( jeer的名词复数 )v.嘲笑( jeer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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17
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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18
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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19
sinecure
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| n.闲差事，挂名职务 | |
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reassures
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| v.消除恐惧或疑虑，恢复信心( reassure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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imbue
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| v.灌输(某种强烈的情感或意见)，感染 | |
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23
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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24
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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25
portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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27
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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28
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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29
knavery
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| n.恶行，欺诈的行为 | |
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30
subtleties
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| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
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31
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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32
felon
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| n.重罪犯；adj.残忍的 | |
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33
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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34
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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