se workmen are unknown. The historians, coldly and
disinterestedly, pass them by.

The new drama has unveiled this kind of tragedy. It has done away with
the lie that sought to produce a violent dramatic effect through a
plunge from the sublime to the ridiculous. Those who understand
Tolstoy's "Power of Darkness," wherein but those of the lowest strata
appear, will be overwhelmed by the terrible tragedy in their lives, in
comparison with which the worries of some crowned head or the money
troubles of some powerful speculator will appear insignificant indeed.
That which this master unfolds before us is no longer a plunge from
heaven to hell; the entire life of these people is an Inferno. The
terrible darkness and ignorance of these people, forced on them by the
social misery of dull necessity, produces greater soul sensations in the
spectator than the stilted tragedy of a Corneille. Those who witness a
performance of Gerhart Hauptmann's "Hannele" and fail to be stirred by
the grandeur and depth of that masterpiece, regardless of its petty
poorhouse atmosphere, deserve to see nothing else than the "Wizard of
Oz." And again is not the long thunderous march of hungry strikers in
Zola's "Germinal" as awe-inspiring to those who feel the heart beat of
our age even as the heroic deeds of Hannibal's warriors were to his
contemporaries?

The world stage ever represents a change of participants. The one who
played the part of leading man in one century, may become a clown in
another. Entire social classes and casts that formerly commanded first
parts, are to-day utilized to make up stage decorations or as
figurantes. Plays representing the glory of knighthood or minnesingers
would only amuse to-day, no matter how serious they were intended to
appear. Once anything lies buried under the bulk of social changes, it
can affect coming generations only so far as the excavated skeleton
affects the geologist. This must be borne in mind by sincere stage art,
if it is not to remain in the stifling atmosphere of tradition, if it
does not wish to degrade a noble method, that helps to recognize and
disclose all that is rich and deep in the human into a commonplace,
hypocritical and stupid method. If the artist's creation is to have any
effect, it must contain elements of real life, and must turn its gaze
toward the dawn of the morn of a more beautiful and joyous world, with a
new and healthy generation, that feels deeply its relationship with