A Book About the Theater — A Reader’s Guide

Diction and the Defense of the Minor Arts

Matthews’s vocabulary in the dedicatory letter reveals his strategy. He uses words like “loiter,” “stroll,” and “ramble” to describe his method, suggesting a leisurely, almost accidental scholarship. Yet he immediately counters this with the claim that such browsing “may be as profitable” as a “rigorous and rigid course of study.” The contrast between casual verbs and formal academic language (e.g., “austere analysis,” “deviations into the by-paths”) creates a tension that defines the book’s rhetorical stance. Matthews is not merely apologizing; he is redefining what counts as serious criticism. His choice of “subordinate subdivisions” and “lesser chapels” implies a hierarchy he intends to challenge, while the phrase “rarely considered to be worthy of criticism” directly indicts the narrowness of contemporary scholarship.

Contemporary Observation as Evidence

In the chapter on dancing, Matthews grounds his argument in a specific event: the September 1910 outdoor session of the Playground Association of America in Van Cortlandt Park. He describes three hundred children performing national folk-dances—German, Irish, Hungarian, and African American—and contrasts this with contemporaneous theater performances of “ill-trained and half-clothed women” attempting Salomé dances. The juxtaposition is precise: the park dances are “gay and healthy and spontaneous,” while the theater shows are “consciously and deliberately inartistic.” Matthews uses this concrete comparison to illustrate a broader point about the degradation of dance as a theatrical art. He does not rely on abstract theory but on a reported scene, complete with details of costume and music (“Ach, du lieber Augustin,” “Suwanee River”). This method—using a single, well-observed event to support a larger claim—is characteristic of his approach throughout the book.

Structure and the Rhetoric of Contrast

Matthews organizes his argument through sharp contrasts. In the dance section, he sets the “joyous and wholesome revival” of folk-dances against the “doubtful efforts” of theatrical Salomés. He then introduces a third category: attempts to “recall the severe beauty of Greek dancing,” which he judges as ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful because “the muse of dancing has no right to endeavor to annex the territory of her sisters.” This three-part structure—folk, degraded, and high-art—allows him to define his own position as a middle ground. He is neither a purist who dismisses popular forms nor an apologist for vulgar spectacle. Instead, he argues for a critical appreciation of dance within its proper limits. The pattern recurs in other chapters: Matthews frequently triangulates between two extremes to stake out a nuanced, historically informed perspective.

Recurring Details and the Voice of the Professor

Throughout the excerpts, Matthews’s voice is marked by a distinctive blend of academic authority and personal anecdote. He refers to himself as a “sexagenarian professor” and addresses his dedicatee as “My Dear Augustus,” creating an intimate, epistolary tone. He uses classical references (Cerberus, Tanagra figurines, Attic vases) alongside contemporary slang (“three gentlemen at once”). This mixture signals his dual identity as a scholar of ancient drama and a commentator on modern stage practices. A recurring detail is his insistence on the value of “casual browsing” and “strollings” as a legitimate method of inquiry—a defense of intellectual curiosity against rigid specialization. The phrase “like Cerberus, you are three gentlemen at once” is a playful allusion that also hints at his own multifarious interests. Matthews’s prose is dense with such references, rewarding careful reading.

Readers should approach A Book About the Theater as a series of linked essays rather than a systematic treatise. Matthews’s method is associative, moving from specific examples to broader principles. His observations on dance, pantomime, and scene-painting are grounded in the performance practices of his own time, making the book a valuable document of early twentieth-century American theater. Pay attention to his use of contrast and his willingness to judge—he is not a neutral chronicler but an engaged critic with strong opinions about artistic quality.

I kept thinking about how Brander Matthews insists the stage isn't just its words—the silent gestures, the painted backdrops, the shuffle of feet. Then I found Our Irish Theatre: A chapter of autobiography — Themes and Context, and it felt like the same quiet truth, told from the other side of the curtain: what a play leaves behind when the lines fade. It stays with you gently.