Two plays have been produced by Belasco the presentment of which, in my judgment,—although both of them were received with extravagant favor by numerous writers in the press and were acted profitably and with much manifest public approbation for a long time,—should be recorded as a grievous blot on the fair record of his professional career. One of those plays is this notorious drama of “Zaza,” adapted and altered by Belasco from the French original by MM. Pierre Berton (1840-1912) and Charles Simon (1850-1910); the other is the vulgar and repulsive drama called “The Easiest Way,” concocted by an American journalist, Mr. Eugene Walter, containing a long-drawn portrayal expositive of the immoral character, unchaste conduct, and necessarily wretched retributive experience, of a courtesan. Both of those plays reflect the gross aspect of what Carlyle happily designated Demirepdom,—a domain of licentiousness and bestiality which should never be treated in Drama or illustrated on the Stage.

Opinion on this point is, I am aware, sharply divided. Shakespeare, we are continually reminded, speaking for himself (most inappropriately, by the way) in the character of Hamlet, and referring to “the purpose of playing,” says that its “end both at the first and now was, and is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue, her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.”

What does that mean? Does it mean that everything existent in Nature is material suitable to be presented on the Stage? Does it mean that there should be no restriction as to the choice of subjects, from “the age and body of the time,” to be illustrated in public, before a mixed audience of both sexes and of all ages and conditions? No sound, convincing exposition of that view of the subject has ever been made, and I cannot accept it. Shakespeare, in his plays, has depicted “people of all sorts,” and among others he has depicted several sorts of depraved women, one of them, Cressida, being a natural, typical, representative harlot. It is, however, to be observed that he has not dilated on her career, has not expatiated on her licentiousness, has not enumerated her intrigues, has not analyzed her libidinous propensities, has not tinged his portrayal of her misconduct with any sophistical coloring, has not entered for her any plea in extenuation; has simply drawn her as a type of rank carnality and so dismissed her. Such persons have always existed, they exist now, and they always will exist. That it is necessary, right, or defensible that they should be exploited in the Theatre I have never been able to perceive,—whether they be depicted by Shakespeare or by anybody else. From “Jane Shore” and “The Stranger” to “Denise” and “Camille,” nothing has ever come of the long, dreary, speciously sophistical exhibition of sexual vice and consequent misery but corruption of the moral sense, loose, flabby thinking, cant, and maudlin sentimentality. No good has come of it to anybody, least of all to the victims of their evil passions.

Altruism should prevail in the conduct of life, and with all fine natures it does prevail. The instinctive desire, while not universal nor perhaps general, is very considerable to help the weak, to shield the innocent, to liberate the oppressed, to comfort the afflicted, to find excuses for frailty, to take a charitable view of human infirmity; but while lovely in itself and beneficent in some of its results, it is, in vital particulars, ineffectual: it cannot eliminate depravity from a nature that is innately wicked, and it cannot dispel remorse,—or even mitigate that agony,—from a mind innately conscientious.

Belasco, by obtruding harlots on the stage,—as he has not scrupled to do, in presenting to public observance Zaza and Laura Murdoch,—follows many precedents and impliedly approves the exploitation of such persons,—unfortunate, pitiable, deplorable, sometimes amiable and gentle, more frequently hard, fierce, treacherous, and wicked. His published writings avow his views on this subject, and I have found his private assurances concurrent with his published writings. Those views do more credit to the kindness of his disposition than to the clarity of his thought. From his youth onward he has been deeply interested in aberrant women, studious of their aberrancy, solicitous for their rescue and reformation, charitable toward them, wishful to befriend them, and strenuous, when writing about them, to place them in the best possible light. “Whenever I rehearse a situation of passion, of crime, of wrongdoing” (so he writes), “I remember the heart. I make an excuse—seek out the motive, to put the actor in touch with the culprit’s point of view. The excuse is always there.” No form of reasoning could be more sophistical, more delusive, more mischievous. The reason for sin, for crime, for wrongdoing, is always there: but a broad distinction exists between the reason and the excuse. Some persons, naturally good, nevertheless do wrong, commit crime, sin against themselves and against both moral law and social order, because they cannot help it, because they are weak and cannot resist temptation. Other persons commit crime knowingly, deliberately, intentionally, because they wish to do so, because they delight in doing so, and find their greatest possible gratification in acts of wickedness. Selfishness and greed are, in a vast number of cases, impervious to anything other than the operation of external forces painful to themselves: there are persons who possess no moral sense whatever. The notion that there is a substratum of goodness in every human being is one of the most flagrant delusions that ever entered the mind of sensible persons acquainted with the history of the world and aware of what is passing around them every hour. “I remember the heart” says Belasco: it would not be amiss to remember what was long ago said of that interesting organ by one of the wise prophets of his nation: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” It is in the highest degree creditable to Belasco as a man that he possesses a tenderly compassionate, humane spirit and has always practically acted on the impulse of it; neither wisdom nor justice is discernible in the “moral teaching” that he has liberated by his indiscriminate subservience to it in the instances I have named.