8 June: Boreham on Sarah Siddons

The Mission of Tragedy
Those who are interested in the rise, development, and ultimate triumph of the theatre will like to mark the anniversary of the death of Sarah Siddons, the greatest tragic actress of all time. The literature of the early 19th century is rich in references to the extraordinary place that Mrs. Siddons held in the hearts of her contemporaries. In some of the most outstanding novels of that wealthy period she figures conspicuously. In "John Halifax, Gentleman," for example, Mrs. Craik tells of the regal way in which the actress swept everything before her. And then she makes Phineas Fletcher refer to the lamentable event of which today marks the anniversary. "Well, she is gone!" Phineas exclaims. "Gone, like the brief three hours when we hung on her every breath, as if it could stay even the wheels of time. But they have whirled on —whirled her away with them into the infinite and into earthly oblivion! People tell me that a new generation only smiles at the traditional glory of Sarah Siddons. They never saw her. For me, I shall go down to the grave worshipping her still!" Tens of thousands felt similarly.

That is the pity of it; no triumphs are so ephemeral as.those of the stage. No laurels fade so quickly. The actor quits the scene, and nothing is left to show for it all. When an architect dies, his plans remain; the buildings that he designed stand as their perpetual memorial. An orator leaves his speeches to posterity and an author his works. A statesman writes his autobiography on the Statute Book, and his achievements are elaborately marshalled by the historian of the period. But the telling gestures and clever inflections of the actor pass like shadows. In order to discover the difference between the eloquence of Pitt and the eloquence of Gladstone, or in order to compare the poetry of Virgil with that of Wordsworth, one has only to drop in at the nearest library; but how are we to summarise the distinction between the acting of David Garrick and that of Henry Irving or between the peculiarities of Sarah Siddons and those of Sybil Thorndike?

Why Is Art So Enamoured Of The Tragic Note?
It is difficult to ponder a career like that of Mrs. Siddons without asking a particularly pertinent question: Is tragedy enjoyable? During the most crucial days of the war, there were many who protested against the constant appearance of tragic plays, tragic films, and novels that struck an emphatically tragic note. In times of great public anxiety and great public sorrow, these people argued, such dramas, books, and pictures should be ruthlessly banned. Life is so full of poignancy, they maintained, that neither author nor actor nor painter has any right to harrow still further our lacerated emotions.

Against this, however, it has to be remembered that, by one of the strangest factors in our human composition, sorrow is often an antidote for sorrow. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, tragedy has a real entertainment value. The life story of Mrs. Siddons proves it. Nobody who has witnessed a performance of the Medea of Euripides, Shakespeare's Macbeth, or Ibsen's Ghosts will doubt it for a moment. There were moments when, gripped by the stark horror of the terrible situation depicted on the stage, every person in the audience forgot everything and everyone beside. Explain it how you will, most people derive a vast amount of real consolation from the pathos of life. Women, it is averred, find infinite satisfaction in a good cry; and, although men are reluctant to abandon themselves to such delicious ecstasies of grief, few of them would deny that they have experienced a certain spiritual exultation in the books, pictures and plays that have brought a lump to the throat and moisture to the eyes.

Comedy Makes No Appeal To Broken Hearts
All through the ages, authors, dramatists and painters have revelled in portraying the saddest and most heartrending episodes of human experience. Nobody can visit our national galleries without recognising that the pictures that make the most profound and popular appeal are pictures like "The Crisis," "Breaking the News," "Anguish," "The Bush Burial," "The Pioneer," "The Widower," and "The Return of Burke and Wills to Cooper's Creek." But why? Why are the saddest paintings the greatest favourites? A similar problem confronts us when we turn from the galleries to the libraries. More tears have been shed over the misfortunes of Oliver Twist, Hetty Sorrell, and Jeanie Deans than over the miseries of any three characters in actual history; yet we do not regard Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Sir Walter Scott as our tormentors on that account. We rather love them all the better for having caused us such superfluous tears.

That peculiar law to which we have already referred ordains that our darkest and bitterest hours shall be soothed more readily by tragedy than by comedy. Art relieves our overwrought nerves, not with delineations of gaiety, but with delineations of grief. Sorrow is mocked rather than assuaged by laughter. This, and this alone, explains the effective appeal of the Crucifixion to the hearts of all men everywhere. Little children sit spellbound beneath the pathos of that tender yet tragic story. Old people turn back to it and quietly brush away a tear. The dying cling to it long after all other narratives have lost their charm. And strong men, bearing the burden and heat of the day, find it a marvellous incentive to goodness and a matchless spur to courage. It fits the human heart as a key fits its lock. The artists, whether of the proscenium, the studio or the desk, who know how to heal life's hurts and alleviate life's sufferings by the deft and skilful use of the tragic note, are among the greatest benefactors of mankind. It is very often from a portrayal of pain that the pain-racked derive comfort and courage; it is from the dereliction and darkness of the Cross that a troubled world draws strength and hope and the life that knows no ending.

F W Boreham

Image: Sarah Siddons