Movie theaters are now into their third year of showing live transmissions of stage plays. What began as a somewhat iffy venture in June 2009 with the digital broadcast of London’s National Theatre production of “Phèdre” has now taken hold. This year the National Theatre is offering an impressive series of “live-on-screen” plays. On March 19, 25 and 26 filmgoers around the world can watch Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors,” and on April 15th and 16th Oliver Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer.”

The excitement for bringing stage dramas to film theaters in fact took off one hundred years ago. In 1912, film entrepreneur Adolph Zukor arranged for the world premiere in New York of “Queen Elizabeth,” starring the great Sarah Bernhardt. The film was a production by Film d’Art, a French company which had been founded in 1908 with the goal of putting onto film major productions by French National Theatre companies. The ultimate intention was to make available to mass audiences superior examples of dance and drama, albeit in mute renderings.Shot in England, “Queen Elizabeth” was a grand, emotive historical drama about the final stages of the life of Britain’s Elizabeth I. At four reels and 50 minutes in length the film was the longest running motion picture shown in the US to date. It was a big hit, due largely to the presence and reputation of Bernhardt. Earlier in 1912 Bernhardt’s “Camille,” made the year before, had been shown to great acclaim in the United States. One critic called her performance “the living embodiment of Camille.”

It’s intriguing to me that “Camille” and “Queen Elizabeth” found such favorable responses. As with all the Film d’Art screen adaptations (they were significantly shorter than the parent works), they were little different from what audiences would see in a legitimate theater. Actors used the same “projected” movements and gestures required on the proscenium stage, and they spoke the play’s dialogue even though it would never be heard.

Furthermore, these stage-to-film productions used minimal cinematic techniques and were for the most part filmed in long-shot takes; yet this didn’t seem to particularly bother audiences then. In looking back at film criticism written at the time I found two articles in “Moving Picture World” that argued for unembellished, simple filming of screen action. A March, 1911, piece argued, “There are too many moving pictures made nowadays, even by reputable makers, in which the figures are too near the screen: that is to say they assume unusually large and, therefore, grotesque proportions.” A year later, in the same journal, H.F. Hoffman lashed out at the “tendency of many motion picture makers to cut the feet of the actors out of the scene….Facial expression—that seems to be the dominating influence that brings this inartistic result.” These criticisms seem outlandish and amusing today, but they’re telling commentary on what some observers thought constituted “inartistic” filmmaking a century ago.

Similar to the goals of Film d’Art, the American Film Theater (AFT) series of the 1970s sought to bring modern and classic plays to the screen, with the goal of remaining absolutely faithful to the playwright’s text. Created by Ely Landau, AFT offered filmgoers two seasons of plays—in 1973-74 and 1974-75. Altogether 14 landmark dramas were shown in 500 movie theaters. Theaters showed four screenings of each work to filmgoers who subscribed to each series.

Eugene O’Neill’s dark 1940 classic “The Iceman Cometh” inaugurated the AFT’s first series. John Frankenheimer directed a stellar cast that included Lee Marvin, Fredric March, Robert Ryan and Jeff Bridges. Even at the onset problems were evident in the AFT’s unwavering commitment to the script. “The Iceman Cometh” ran for four hours, and visual variety in the filming had been minimal. This led to various negative critical responses: “over-stagy,” “tedious,” “dull.” Still the 14 films remain authentic records of great theater talent at work. Both seasons of American Film Theater productions were made available in 2008 in a DVD box-set.

As with the Film d’Art, the 1970’s American Film Theater, and now digital transmissions from London’s prestigious National Theatre, the efforts have had one expressed common goal: broadening cultural enrichment via the movie house. A reviewer responding to Queen Elizabeth’s New York premiere in 1912 wrote that “the film has helped give artistic dignity to the cinema (and) has given proof that the cinema can leave the nickelodeons behind and survive in large theaters before discerning audiences.” The American Film Theater experiment brought similar claims.

Today, the success of National Theatre productions through digital broadcast technology is impressive for a number of reasons, most notably the on-going quality of what is being offered viewers. Last winter’s “Frankenstein,” directed by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, was a major theatrical event that had would-be theatergoers in London begging for unavailable seats. Broadcast transmission to movie houses opened up this once-in-a-lifetime production to worldwide audiences.

Another factor in the success of the National Theatre offerings is its more cinematic rendering of the play action. For the initial “Phèdre,” with the great Helen Mirren in the title role, director Nicholas Hytner employed five multi-video cameras to effect visual variety in range and scope as the dramatic action unfolded. The experience for the filmgoer was quite different—much more dynamic and “filmic”—from that of Film d’Art and American Film Theater creations.

In examining reviews of “Phèdre,” I found one that echoed expectations for theater in the movie house, with similarity to those prophesied in reviews of “Queen Elizabeth” a century ago. Writing in The Guardian on June 26, 2009, Michael Billington, who had seen the broadcast transmission of Phèdre in London’s Chelsea Cinema wrote: “‘Phèdre’ proves that a cinema audience can be as moved as people sitting in the theatre: everyone applauded loudly at the curtain-call, just as if they were in the (NT’s) Lyttelton. But the major main lesson is that a theatre production can be made democratically available to a mass audience without any loss of quality; indeed because the camera can mix closeup and long-shot and because we can hear easily, the aesthetic impact may actually be enhanced.”

Add in the very popular Metropolitan Opera “Live in HD” transmissions to motion picture theaters and one can sense a real change for movie houses and how we perceive them. The film house seems to be morphing into a role similar to that of a community cultural-arts center, no longer just being thought of as a popcorn-entertainment kind of destination. This might even be a boost to the movie industry itself, as it struggles to hold onto and gain box-office patrons.