Connecticut western news., 1893-05-04


 recourse to it source of some of the finest and best influences of which they are respectively susceptible.
 ''To the thoughtful and reading man it brings the life, the fire, the color, which are beyond the reach of study. To the common, indifferent man, immersed as rule in the business and socialities of daily life, it brings visions of glory and adventure, of emotion and of broad hu- man interest. It gives glimpseapf the heights and depths of character and ex- perience, setting him thinking and won- dering even in the midst of amusement. To the most torpid and unobservant it exhibits the humorous in life and the sparkle and fnesse of language which in dull, ordinary existence is stupidly shut out of knowledge or omitted from par ticular notice. Be it observed, and put it most uncompromisingly I am not thinking or speaking of an unrealizable ideal, not of any lofty imagination of what might be, but of what is, wherever there are pit and gallery and footGghts.
 TRUTH AND ERROR IN EACH VIEW.
 There is truth in both of these views, and there is error. What Irving says of the stimulating influence of the drama is true, but when he declares that this is an actual condition wherever there are pit and gallery and footlights he has con- fused ideals in his own mind with the actualities of life, or else he has supposed that his theater is the standard not only of London, but of all theaters of the world, which is manifest absurdity. I would accept MT. Irving's view of the drama and of its function and of it's pos abilities as a rational statement of the case provided we understand the ideal condition of the drama. But that this is realized as yet, except in rare cases, is certainly not fact. I have been a close student of the drama for six years.
 During the last year have made 8 special investigation of the subject from the moral point of view. speak of what Iknow and have seen personally. There are a few good theaters in New York, but they are very few. There are a few good theaters in our other large cities, but the bad ones outnumber the good ten to one. There are good plays, and there are bad plays. There are plays that are wholesome and that are helpful, and wish there were more of them pro- duced today in America. I have come to the deliberate conclusion, after the study of which speak, that it is the duty of the teacher of morals today to encourage that which is good and whole some and to discriminate between the good and the bad in dramatic represen- tation.
 On rare occasions through these six years have attended good theaters with helpful results to myself. But the great est care must be exercised by any man who goes to a theater today lest he bring himself in contact with the vilest and the foulest possible action, which today dominates the theatrical world.
 The men who are trying to give the public the highest class of entertainment and instruction in the theater should be sustained and encouraged, and it is time that this element united with the Chris tian sentiment of the community in de- termined effort to crush out or at least to muzzle the evil influences of the low playhouses. The plain truth is-I say it deliberately; say it from personal knowledge and from study, without prej- udice:
 Most of our theaters as at present con- ducted are e disgrace to the morals and an indictment of the intelligence of the Americaa nation and are the sources Of inlmeasurable corruption to our life.
 maintain that this is true.
 OPERA BoUFFE.
 First-Because the theater is one of the first powers that touches young life in our civic centers, either the life of the youth born in the city or of the new blood which pours into the city from the country. To the theater they go first to see the city. The truth Is that the city has created the theater. The theater is product of city life. It was so in an- cient times. It is so today. If the thea ter is bad, it is because the city is bad. The theater is growth of city life.
 The barrenness of the city, its loneh- ness, it's dull round of uninteresting toll, its gloom and despair, have created the theater as the reaction inevitable from such conditions. In the life of the city there is an awful need of cheer and re- taxation, of amusements, of change from rush and din and roar and grind and bur- den and toll. The city is the loneliest spot on Gods earth-that is, for the average man or woman. The theater is created by this morbidly developed need in the human soul. The theater first touches character in the city in this hour of crisis, in the reaction and recoil from these dull clements of life, and it sweeps with resistless power the half formed character.
 In that condition of crisis in the deyel- opment of life, in the awful craving of the soul for the beautiful and the joy ous, moral distinctions even are lost sight of. I once knew a spinster of some 40 years of age who had never seen a the atrical production. She decided on one occasion that she would see what the theater was like. As the theaters were crowded during some great festive week she asked young gentleman friend to direct her where to go. He decided to play prank on her, knowing her train ing and feeling sure 1t would be a great joke to shock her moral sensibilities by sending her to the worst playhouse in the city. So he purchased the tickets and took her to the performance of widely known opera bouffe company.
 Her friends waited for her return that they might enjoy her indignation and joke her about the evenings enter tainment. But to their amazement when she returned she was as enthusiastic as child. She had never heard such mu- sic. She declared she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. She