The Repertory

Abstract

The Royal Dutch Theatre at The Hague had no qualities to give it a distinctive character. The subsidy which it received from the King was not generous enough to establish it fully as a court theatre, and the receipts from subscriptions were not sufficient to permit it to appeal solely to the taste of that part of the middle-class which was able to afford annual subscriptions. Consequently the theatre was obliged to cater to the general, more or less uneducated public, which goes to the play merely to be distracted for a few hours. But the Haagsche Schouwburg cannot even be called a popular theatre. The popular theatre of the first half of the Nineteenth Century might present plays of no value whatever, plays that were dropped and forgotten as soon as the fickle public clamored for something new, but it had its definite appeal and its definite clientele. In the larger centres the theatres of the people very often concentrated on the presentation of separate types of entertainment. One was famous for its vaudevilles, another for its melodramas, a third for its ballet productions. In comparison with these theatres the Haagsche Schouwburg was a nondescript affair. It tried to please all levels of society and probably succeeded in pleasing none in the long run. It presented everything: operas, operettas, tragedies, comedies of all kinds, domestic dramas, costume dramas, melodramas, féeries, vaudevilles, ballets, pantomimes, and variety acts — an incredible mixture.