Connecticut western news., 1893-05-04


 So in this awful need of human nature in the city the theater enters, and while the soul is intoxicated with the sense of beauty begins to instill even uncon- sciously the seeds of moral death. There are clements in the life of the country districts which answer to this need not found in the city. Those who live in the country have the beauties and glories of nature. They can live in her, move in her and have their being in the beauty of landscape and mountain, in field and meadow. Besides, in our country towns today in America there have been estab- ished system of lyceum entertain ments and lectures of the very highest order. These things occupy the life of the town through the long winter months The city fails to provide as yet such cen- ters of intellectual relaxation and social improvement. It is to the theater that young manhood and womanhood imme- diately go in the city for amusement. If the sum total of the influences of the theater be overwhelmingly evil, how ter rible must be the results!
 Out of all the theaters in the city of New York you can count on the fingers of one hand those that are conducted upon strictly decent principles. And even these are now and then disgraced by performances which for the time put them on the level of the lower centers of evil. Some years ago, when distin- guished minister undertook an investiga- tion of the underworld of New York city, he started out one evening at 10 o'clock. The detective officer who accompanied him said to him: ''It is only 10 o'clock, and it is too early to see the places that we wish to see, for the theaters have not yet let out. The preacher said, "What do you mean by that?' ''Well," he said, "the places of iniquity are not in full blast until after the people have time to arrive from the theaters." In that sin gle reply of this police officer we are brought face to face with the terrible fact that the sum total of the influences of our theaters today is overwhelmingly evil and evil in it's immediate results as well as its ultimate tendencies.
 Second-I say it from the character of the plays that, as rule, are produced today. Instead of the intellectual work of Shakespeare or one who modestly aspires to be his disciple, we are now passing through the era of the stage car penter-the mechanic. It is the hour of the great tank act, of live horses on the stage and of real fire engines that are drawn across in the midst of tremendous applause. It is the hour of mechanics and cheap claptraps. As the fire engine dashed across the stage in one of our T. @o,. 41a sr~lo4 leaped from her seat a raving maniac and was carried to the lunatic asylum. We do not wonder at this. The char acter of the plays produced now in a number of our theaters is enough to un- hinge the mind of the average man and woman if taken seriously.
 JUGGLERS AND ACRoBATS.
 Besides, there have been introduced elements of daring and danger in our theatrical amusements of late that indi- cate downward tendency. In houses once used as decent places of amusement we have jugglers and acrobats, whose feats pander to the basest elements of human nature and are on par with the fight of the gladiator, with the wild beast of the Roman arena, and re- suits are frequently as fatal. Recently at theater an acrobat 24 years old was engaged in making turns over a pole near the ceiling. He had made several turns about the pole, to the admiration of the gaping audience, when his perch suddenly gave way, and he fell down. ward. He struck between the orchestra chairs and the musicians and was in- stantly killed.
 The amount of unmitigated rubbish that is dished up in our theaters today is absolutely appalling. Ten years ago a New York daily, in reviewing the condi- tion of the drama, said: "There has been 8 greater mass of meretricious rubbish put on the New York stage during the last 10 years than during the whole of it's existence. We do not of course refer solely to pieces that appeal to the baser instincts, but to the whole body of sen- sational or emotional products, the fe- verish slop of a French melodrama" A distinguished dramatic critic told me few days ago that in his opinion the av- craze production of the last 10 years has been baser than in any 10 previous years in the history of the American stage
 An American writer in The Contem- porary Review, speaking of the New York theaters, says: "A friend of mine who made tour of them all was in- clined to think that those patronized by the roughs in the Bowery were less i'm moral than those patronized by the resi- dents of Fifth avenue. It is matter of dispute whether they honestly enjoy good music as much as they enjoy inn moral plays" The hopelessness of the situation is further accented by the fact that our great newspapers do not seri- ously pretend to do the work of honest criticism for the public. Either one of two things is sure. They do not pub fish the criticisms of men of brains, who are able to do the work, who are noln- inally in charge of the department of dramatic criticism, or else they pur- posely put this work in the hands of those who write only to praise in the in terest of the advertising department.
 AN INTELLECTUAL NOMINATION.
 For instance, there is play now run ming in the city of New York, and at one of our theaters of high reputation, which has for its end the glorifcation of lie, the dialogue of which is full of the most vicious sentiment, the moral teaching of which, as a whole, has little to redeem it from any possible point of view. And yet l have not seen single word in criti- cism of this play which even takes note of the fact that it is built on the idea that happiness can be attained by decep- ton and lying in the home