At a season of the year when children invade both the stage and the auditorium of many theatres in unwonted numbers it would be at least topical to speculate as to the philosophy of pantomime and the artistic merits and defects of child actors and actresses.  But while juvenile mimicry of adult conceptions of drama is entertaining enough, it is more to our purpose to consider the dramatic spirit as it is actually present in children themselves.  Pantomimes certainly do not reflect this spirit, and, in spite of the sentimental, but hardly more childish influence of fairy-plays, are still aimed exclusively at adult audiences who grant themselves no other opportunity of appreciating the humours of the music-halls.  Probably the ideal children’s play would have the colour of pantomime, the atmosphere of p. 218“Peter Pan,” the poetry of the “Blue Bird,” and, most important of all, a downright melodramatic plot.  It is this last that is invariably lacking in entertainments nominally provided for children; it is the first consideration in the entertainments they provide for themselves.

If grown-up people were in the habit, which unfortunately they are not, of meeting together in moments of relaxation and acting little extemporary plays, these plays would surely give a first-hand indication of the dramatic situations that interested them.  Yet this is what children are always doing, and in terms of play every little boy is a dashing and manly actor and every little girl a beautiful and accomplished actress.  From the first glad hour when little brother cries to little sister, “You be Red Riding Hood, and I’ll be the wolf and eat you!” the dramatic aspect of life is never absent from the mind of imaginative youth.

In one respect, at all events, these play-dramas of children should meet with the approval of modern dramatic critics.  No one can accuse them of losing sight of the p. 219motive of their drama in elaboration of scenery or stage effects.  A chair will serve for a beleaguered castle, a pirate ship, or Cinderella’s coach in turn, and the costumes imitate this Elizabethan simplicity.  Nevertheless, it cannot be said that their stage is entirely free from the tyranny of those pernicious conventions that place obstacles in the way of art.  The law of primogeniture, always rigidly enforced in nurseries, as Mr. Kenneth Grahame has observed, makes the eldest brother as much of a nuisance as the actor-manager.  According to his nature, and the character of the play, he always insists on being either hero or villain, and in the absence of limelight contrives to give himself an exaggerated share both of the action and of the dialogue.  Sisters are placid creatures and do not very much mind whether they have anything to do or not as long as they can all be princesses; but it is hard on a younger brother to be compelled to walk the plank, although he has the heart of a pirate chief.  And the fact that whatever part he may play the eldest brother must triumph at the end of the last act tends p. 220to stereotype the lines along which the drama develops.

As for the plays themselves, it must be owned that they cover an extraordinary extent of ground, and display a variety that no other repertory theatre can hope to equal.  The present writer has seen five children in one afternoon give spirited performances of Aladdin, David and Goliath, an unnamed drama of pirates, and the famous comedy of teacher and naughty pupils.  This last is the standard performance of Elementary School girls all over London, and to the discerning critic displays just those faults of sophistication and over-elaboration to which long runs at our theatres have made us accustomed.  The teacher is always too monotonously ill-tempered, the pupils are ill-behaved beyond all discretion; Ibsen, one feels, would have expressed this eternal warfare between youth and authority in subtler terms.  Sometimes, however, London children achieve a really startling realism in their games; and the looker-on may derive a considerable knowledge of the mothers from watching the children perform p. 221in some such drama of life as the ever-popular “Shopping on Saturday Night.”  It may be noted here that children’s rhapsodies over dolls and kittens, o............