Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-07
PERILS OF THE PLAYHOUSE.
Rev. DR., Guyier Points Ont the Dangers of
the Modern Theater.

Rev. DR., CuyIer Points Ont the Dangers of
the Modern Theater.
I have often been asked, "Would it be
right for me to go to the theater? If not,
then why not?' Those who PROFOUND these
questions are not of the dissipated and dis
solute class, but clean young men and
maidens-too clean to be smirched by need
less exposure to impure influences. That
such questions are raised constantly is not
surprising, for the playhouse is increasing
persistently in its demands on popular at
tention and patronage. 1t fills constantly
enlarging place in the daily journals. Thea
ters multiply more rapidly than churches,
in some of our great cities. Theater-going
increases more than church-going. The
dead-walls are covered with pictorial repre-
sentations of scenes and actors in full dress
Cor of no dress at alD; and many of these
aye of such disgusting indecency that they
deserve suppression by the public authori-
ties. If the pictures be so shameless, what
must the originals be?
We do not affirm that every popular play
is immoral, or that every performer is i'm
pure, or that every theater-goer is on the
scent for sensual excitements. But the
stage is to be estimated as q totality, and
the whole trend of the average American
stage is hostile to heart purity. The excep-
tions do not alter the rule. Nor have honest
attempts to bring the stage up to a high
standard of moral purity been successful.
AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.
The experiment once made in Boston of
SO managing a theater as to exclude every
indelicacy from the stage, and every notori-
ously improper person from the audience,
ended in pecuniary failure. The Puritanic
PLAYHOUSE soon went into bankruptcy The
chief object of the manager is to make
money. and if he can spice his evenings en-
tertainment with plot that turns on Sc
duction, or q scene of sexual passion, or
with a sagacious exposure of physical
beauty, the temptation is too strong to be
often resisted.
You must take the average stage as it is,
and not as you would like to have it. 1t is
an institution which, if you patrouise, you
become morally responsible for, as much as
if you were to patronize public library, or
a public drinking saloon. AS an institu-
tion 1t habitually unsexes woman by parad-
ing her before a mixed audience in mans
attire, Too often it exposes her in such a
pitiable scantiness of any attire at all, that
if you saw your own sister in snch a plight,
you would turn away your eyes in horror
Yet you PROPOSE to pay your money Through
tne DoX Omcel 10 SomtDOuy else sisters ana
daughters to violate womanly delicacy for
YOUR entertainment. sit the daughter of
herodius'' dances to please you, then you
are responsible for the dance, both in its in
huence on the dancer and your own moral
sense, There is no evsding, before God, of
your accountability for the theater if you
habitually support it.
A DANGEROUS FASCINATION.
Another peril of the theater arises from
the fascination which it too often engenders.
Like wine-drinking, it becomes an appetite.
To crafty this growing passion for the play
house, tens of thousands of young people
suuander their money and their time. Other
and purer recreations become tame and in
sipid. Wholesome pleasures cease to please,
Just as brandy drinker ceases to be salts
fed with cold water. 1t ia not recreation,
but stimulation, and a very dangerous sort