The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-04-28

course of the WomanS Literary Union.
Mr.. Henry A. Clapp of Boston, who has
spoken once before in this course besides
delivering a series of Shakesperean lee
lures here this winter, was the speaker;
and his subject was the relations of the
theatre to modern life. Mr. Clapp began
by saying that he was going to tell just
what he thought about his subject, with
out any mealy- With the
theatre as it exists in the United States
today there is something the matter.
What is it? There is one distinguishing
characteristic defect, and that is vulgari-
ty Not immortality or indecency, but
vulgarity- cheap, common
place ideals.
The relation of the theatre to this
country is most important. A great
change has come about in this relation
ship in recent years. From forty to fifty
years ago the churches were, with the
exception Of the Roman, half of the
Episcopal and the Unitarian body, def
nitely arrayed against the theatre.
But since that time the number of peo-
pie opposing the theatre has steadily de-
creased. If go per cent were against it
then, hardly 20 are now.
At the beginning of this century the
theatres could be counted on the fingers
of the two hands, and the professional
actors did not number over 200 or 300
How many theatres are there now? 1t
is hard to count them in Boston; harder
still in Portland. [Laughterl. There
are hundreds and thousands; and the
actors in the United States must number
10000.
Another great change is found in the
building of theatres. Fifty years ago
the theatre building differed little from
what it was in the days of Queen
Elizabeth. There was the stage, and
above in the place where the dress cir
cles now are, were the boxes for the
gentry, while the common people were
gathered below.
In Shakespeare's time an equal promi-
nence was give to the gentry 1t was
from the gentry that the support of the
theatre came. This was also the case so
years ago. The aristocratic class, the
social and cultured class, were the leading
patrons, and to them actors and mana
gers looked for support.
How different the theatre now! The
boxes of the gentry have disappeared,
except the curious anomaly of the pros
cenium box, the poorest place for seeing
and the best for being seen in the whole
theatre The place where the
tnI- Ar i
called the box office, in memory of the
time when the most important portion
of the audience engaged boxes. From
| rendezvous of the gentry who visited with
one another while witnessing the play
from their boxes. the theatre has become
a vast audience hall filled with people
who come solely to see the play, with no
thought of seeing one another.
This democratic mass govern the
theatre. The cultivated classes do not
count. Suppose there are 10000 people
in Boston who might be included in a
cultivated class. Practically 10000 would
be large figure for those who would
be available for theatre going. There
are ten theatres in Boston, and in each
an audience of 1000 a night is required to
make them pay. Therefore the Boston
theatres must have an audience of 10000
York
100000 Are Required Week.
Where then are your gentry? Your Gull
tivated class? They are hardly drop in
the bucket. No one knows this better
than the theatracal manager. Small
reason for him to cater to the cultured
| classes.
| Furthermore, the dinner hour, which
is moving backward and is at half-past
six in Boston, and even later in New
| York, is tending to keep the cultured
classes away. In London, this dinner
| hour has become serious matter to the
theatres Furthermore, in the last 20
| years the social, literary intellectual en-
| gagements of the cultured class have
| multiplied in bewildering fashion.
There is not much time left for the thea
tre, and this added to the fact that the
| theatre is not quite congenial to their
tastes, makes it very difficult to get them
out to plays. Our cultured classes are
| learning, with Emerson, that there is no
pleasure like refined conversation with
agreeable and cultured friends.
Can this class then be depended on for
any steady patronage that will elevate
| the theatre? We have demonstrated
that they could not, if they desired, and
they are, moreover, losing the desire.
| The steady patronage of the theatre is
| with the great mass of honest and hum
BILE people. They are as good as any of
us, but they do not have, and do not pre-
tend to have, intellectual culture and
highly refined tastes. They are the peo-
| pie who fill the theatres.
The great body of plays made for this
class are not morally bad, but intellec-
tually weak and aesthetically vulgar.
1 The plays that fill the theatre are of
three classes, excepting slight percent
age Of high class plays which have de-
creased appallingly in recent years.
There are the, low plays, but this class
class are few in percentage.
There remain then two main classes o f
plays.
The old fashioned melodrama has re-
vived. We thought it dead years ago.
But it is back again in full force, as
| uproariously virtuous as ever.
The other class is the farce comedy,
that hideous thing. Absolutely without
literary merit, these plays possess the