III. "FAUST" AT THE LYCEUM
In the version of "Faust" given by Irving at the Lyceum, Wills did his
best to follow the main lines of Goethe's construction. Unfortunately he
was less satisfied with Goethe's verse, though it happens that the verse
is distinctly better than the construction. He kept the shell and threw
away the kernel. Faust becomes insignificant in this play to which he
gives his name. In Goethe he was a thinker, even more than a poet. Here
he speaks bad verse full of emptiness. Even where Goethe's words are
followed, in a literal translation, the meaning seems to have gone out
of them; they are displaced, they no longer count for anything. The
Walpurgis Night is stripped of all its poetry, and Faust's study is
emptied of all its wisdom. The Witches' Kitchen brews messes without
magic, lest the gallery should be bewildered. The part of Martha is
extended, in order that his red livery may have its full "comic relief."
Mephistopheles throws away a good part of his cunning wit, in order that
he may shock no prejudices by seeming to be cynical with seriousness,
and in order to get in some more than indifferent spectral effect.
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