Hamilton Deane - The Definition of Terror in the Theatre.

This interview is taken from The Era theatrical newspaper of the 19th February 1930, at this time Deane's stage play version of Frankenstein was playing at the Little Theatre Club in Garrick Yard, London.

Hamilton Deane as Frankenstein's Monster.

I cannot understand the attitude of those who regard as lamentable the public's fondness for horrors in the theatre. Would these super sensitive folk like to scatter the crowds of wide-eyed children who collect in front of Punch and Judy booths?

For, remember, these youthful playgoers are probably enjoying the thrill of seeing Punch beat Judy, throw the baby out of the window, and suffer an ignominious and protracted hanging in retribution.

And do our squeamish friends want to go round at Christmas time breaking up the happily trembling groups who gather at the fireside for the purpose of frightening eachother with ghost stories?

Specialists In The Macabre.

To me, a taste for having one's hair raised and one's blood curdled seems perfectly natural and innocent. Last year I had long talks with two specialists in the macabre, Mr Russell Thorndike (author of the Dr Syn novels) and Mr Todd Slaughter, and I can assure you that there was nothing sinister or unhealthy about them.

Hamilton Deane

Then the other day I met Mr Hamilton Deane, whose speciality for the last three years has been the presentation of a play depicting the peculiar habits of Count Dracula, and who now is spreading consternation every night among audiences at the Little Theatre with his haunting portrayal of the monster in Frankenstein.

He told me that his favourite forms of recreation were camping out in the open air and going to see musical comedies. He laughed at the idea that purveyors  of horror must necessarily be the processors of morbid minds.

"Why, look at Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula!" he said to me, "He was an Irishman like myself, and as big and breezy and bluff a man as you'd meet anywhere."

The Desire to be Horrified.

Mr Hamilton Deane also dismissed the notion that thrillers in the theatre are harmful and degrading. 

"Deep down in everybody's consciousness," he said "is a strange desire to be horrified. This is perhaps stronger today than it has ever been before, for the majority of us lead sheltered, unexciting lives in which nothing occurs to awaken the primordial emotion of terror.

And if one supplies this stimulent in an artificial form, I fail to see that the result is to be deplored. The after effects of a good genuine horrific play cannot possibly be as pernicious as those of a highly salacious French farce."

Deane as Sherlock Holmes

The Art of Staging Thrillers.

"Where did you study the technique of the thriller?" I asked Mr Deane.

"What first got me interested in the manufacture of stage shockers was the Grand Guignol in New York. When I was over there I was a constant visitor at the theatre where it was given. There they put over some of the most amazing thrills I have ever seen. By studying their methods, and particularly those of Mr Holbrook Blinn - well known over here for his work with Martin Harvey - I learned a fair amount about the craft of staging thrillers.

The subtler points of a thriller may not always be appreciated by professional critics; but believe me, the general public responds to them extraordinarily quickly. As an experienced purveyor of 'shockers,' I think I can say emphatically that it is the public which can be best left to produce plays of this type

In touring the provinces and presenting pieces in different towns I have discovered that audiences everywhere react to the same emotions, and that the same patches fail to appeal to their imagination. These, I realise, have no practical value, and they are weeded out."

The Process of Suggestion.

"Members of the audience infect each other with fear and so help to build up the necessary atmosphere for a thriller, don't they?" I asked.

"Exactly. And the best way to get this leaven of terror working in an audience is through a process of suggestion. In Dracula we did nothing actually scarifying on the stage; we merely suggested something horrible, and that suggestion, once it had soaked into the minds of the audience, caused a bigger reaction than the placing of a mechanical thrill before them could have done.

At the beginning of Frankenstein the preparation of the audience for the shock we wish to give them has to be effected gradually. If the inert figure of the monster came to life a few moments after the rise of the curtain, the proper 'punch' would be lacking.

But by using a few of the legitimate tricks of the theatre, of which the chief one is suspense, we manage, I think, to build up that atmosphere in which it is possible to create the maximum sensation."

Deane as Dracula

Cumulative Effects.

I confessed to Mr Hamilton Deane that after two vague forebodings and suspicions of the earlier part of Frankenstein had taken tangible shape in the monster, I expected to lose most of my interest in the play. 

That I had not done so was due, I told him, to his own wonderful acting as the creature which gradually, before our eyes, takes on the more rudimentary human attributes.

He smiled the compliment away and said; "Naturally, you have to sustain your effect once you have reached it. If you lose it for a moment, you would have to begin all over again and prepare for a number of lesser shocks, each one of which would be less startling than the last.

The whole of Frankenstein works up cumulatively to the end of the last act where Henry is killed. That is the climax of the play, and when it comes it is not unexpected. It is very wrong to attempt to fool your audience. If you lead them to expect a certain climax, you must give it to them."

The Thriller of the Future.

"Is it possible to fashion a thrill play out of suggestion alone?" I asked.

"The thriller of the future will be entirely on the mental plain I think." said Mr Deane. "The public taste is for subtler methods.

In the best Grand Guignol, the horror always comes from the minds of the audience, and very seldom from actual happenings on the stage. Scenes of torture, imitation blood, and other clap trap of the Parisian Grand Guignol don't thrill the average intelligent playgoer; they are more inclined to make him laugh.

But get at his imagination, set it working along certain lines, and you stand a better chance of awakening terror within him."

The literature of Fear.

"Have you made a study of the literature of fear?"

"I have always been interested in it. I carried Dracula round with me for twenty years before I made a play of it. And ever since my dramatisation was produced, books of the same type have come pouring in on me from everywhere. Thus I think I must have read every scrap of morbid literature that had ever been written."

During the greater part of this conversation with him - which occured in his dressing room - Mr Deane was making up, with his back to me. When at last he turned round, I nearly jumped out of my seat. Visitors to the Little Theatre will know why.