The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-02-03
IS THE OVERWHELMING.

Il
Few thoughtful observers there are
who do not find themselves today more
or less disposed tol5meurn what ap-
pears to them to be The hopeless deca-
dence of the drama THE finest. prod
ucts of dramatic art9 are passed by
Managers do not 'feefeitf Safe to trust their
pccuniary fortunes sto their production.
except for a select and comparatively
small element of IcfRsater-goers. The
young generation knows very little of
the worlds masterpieces Of the drama
from having. had opportunity to observe
their stage prodaetionat Fhe. Days of
great tragedians like Booth and frechter,,
Of Davenport, the .WallaelSs. Forest. sal-]
vini or, Macreadygor ofsJohn GiibertpQJohn
Brougham and the other great stars OF,
the comedy stage "a re. tl9ng, since pas ed
away 1t acannotsb pfetendefhdhat the
stage of today has gffffy SUCCESSORS of
them to show. who are. werthyd Of exhi-
bition. az sizs5,f f,faa914 80 10 no., Oh
CHANGING over the a@@ ann IT, column nlia
Of any 8 of the papers. ofra fgreat city,
like Chicago or New York, tf1e; ,fs4ct is at
once. borne in on The understanding that
the serious drama is. crowded off the
stage and that it IS replaced by the
lighter sort of hit-and-.miss dramatic lit
erature. Vaudeville takes the place which
was occupied up to a few years ago by
light opera; while "the song and dance
is feature of the great bulk oil stage
representations. The period of stage
spectacular which was quite extended Is
now drawn near asrlese, and gags" do
the work which many years ago, when
men were older than they are today, was
left to the delightful wit and hurnor of
the comedies OF Shakespeare, Sheri-
dan and Goldsmith ..;5]...@,r
There is a deal yof pFofundity. wasted
in the columns Of the magazines in ex-
planning this phases eff the medern dra-
ma. There is no profumdity at all need
ed to explain it. The change is not in
the drama or in those: who produce it.
1t is in the people %hospatronize it. We
do not take a serious view Of life today
as we did say five and twenty years
ago Our amusements are less somber.
We go to the show to be amused rather
than to be educated or edited, or to
have our feelings narrowed. Indeed the
general substitution of the word SHOW
instead of '.theater'' explains a whole lot,
so far as relates to the up-to-date pop
ular conception of the. mission of the
stage.
Underneath all it would not be difficult
to discover. if one were to look for it.
a lowering of popular intellectual and
aesthetic standards; and good long
lecture might be read about how much
less refined and elevated in their tastes
men and women are today than their
fathers and mothers were. But cui bono?
Men and women are today pretty much
what they always were Their sur
roundings are different, and their tastes
and habits are accordingly different If
young lady prefers to go and see one of
Hoyt's clever sketches, while her mother
at the same period of life preferred to
see Forrest or Salvini in Othello or the
handsome Englishman, Mantague, or
emotional drama. it would be folly to
argue 'decadence" nsthe part of the
daughter, who is An an probability bet
ter educated and 'aaasaas correct tastes
as her mother. T8erS are cycles of
change ever in progress, and society
usually manages to get back to where
it started in all the essentials to hu-
man enjoyment. On ad4 -
Those who are today delivering lee
lures showing hoyfi'rniiggh less cultivated
the rising generation IS than the declin-
ing one, will probably live to see the same
dramatic tastes prevail from the exist
ence of which in the past SO much to the
diseredit of modern society is being de-
duced. and the cIfs&y5zllfaE in drama. as in
all other expressions of art, reassert its
hold on the healthy. and really intelli-
gent human being.
Yes, those stories were certainly tall
tx.tx,g