To all intents and
purposes, we are completely in the dark as to the course the drama is
about to take; and when, at the end of the first act, Lona Hessel
marches in and flutters the social dovecote, we do not know in what
light to regard her, or why we are supposed to sympathize with her. The
fact that she is eccentric, and that she talks of "letting in fresh
air," combines with our previous knowledge of the author's idiosyncrasy
to assure us that she is his heroine; but so far as the evidence
actually before us goes, we have no means of forming even the vaguest
provisional judgment as to her true character. This is almost certainly
a mistake in art. It is useless to urge that sympathy and antipathy are
primitive emotions, and that we ought to be able to regard a character
objectively, rating it as true or false, not as attractive or repellent.
The answer to this is twofold. Firstly, the theatre has never been, and
never will be, a moral dissecting room, nor has the theatrical audience
anything in common with a class of students dispassionately following a
professor's demonstration of cold scientific facts.
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