The Washington times., 1903-09-13

budgets of new plays before the eyes
of the attentive marine reporter, muses.
John Corbin in the New York Times; :"
the press agents have been filling the
land with golden speech, and already
playhouse curtains are creaking up after
the summer vacation. As in seasons
past. the landscape is filled with the i'm
portant shadows OF coming events, so
that one restrains himself with difficulty
from proclsiming that the season at
hand is to be the most brilliant in his
tory.
Yet the spirit, chastened by expert
ence, looks twice before it takes the
shadow for the substance; it sees
through the glittering billposter of
promise to the bare boards of reality.
The long list of attractions are from
abroad. and. though they number many
of the best works of the best play
wrights in Europe. and the best actors
of the foreign stage, America is as
clearly as ever. to use Mr.. Pinero's
phrase, the suburb OF the universe.
What We get is generally old, and it
- SNiNNNSN AON bCNouoE Vi ITO 4ANNA GAg
or dramatic value per Sc, but because il
promises large and certain gain to the
speculator. OF. as our fOrefathers would
have called him, with unconscious
prophecy. TO the undertaken The mass
of playgoers is larger here than any
where else in the world, and ii is more
easily pleased, but the first effect of
this flooding of the stage with foreign
plays IS TO strange and choke the
drama which is written by Americans
about Americans. and which is in conse-
quence the best of drama for Americans.
Where the Public Sins.
One is not disposed to censure the IN
dertaking manager alone for this. That
he Is tirnid In venturing on tho produc-
tion OF home plays is only too true, aud
also that he Is as a rule woefully de-
acsent in judgment as 10 what is likely
TO prove creditable and profitable. Sad
is the tale of good American plays that
have been kicked from the pillar Of
managerial opulence to the post of the
aspiring novice.
But the manager is after all a mer-
chant. and cannot reasonably be blamed
for trading in the familiar and welI-tried
paths OF success. Quite as much blanc
attaches to the native playwright. who
Is perhaps even more given over to tim
tdity and traditional rule of thumb. A
clear majority OF the plays produced by
native playwrights are consciously and
Intentionally cast in old molds. and
written not for the glory either Of dra-
matte art or of artistic acting, but for
the humble and shoppily commercial
purpose OF catching the astigmatic and
myopic sight OF the actor and the man
ager.
To verify tlss observation, one has
only to take a seeing eye 10 the two
native plays that have already rung ap
curtain. MY Wife's Husbands" at the
Madison Square. and Personal" at the
Bijou. When the American playwright
calls the syndicate's cauldron Of new
plays black. the syndicate manager
could. If he chose, give him the easiest
of tn quoques.
The real sin. we are inclined 70 think
IS with the public, that has stood this
sort OF thing for year upon year and
has made no efficient protest. Play
goers of intelligence here are as nu-
merous as in any other land; their dol
lars are larger and more numerous. Yet
they permit the manager and the play
wright TO cater only for humanity In the
mass. AS we have somewhere re-
marked before. the drama is in the con-
dition in which literature would be IL
books and high-class magazines had
never been invented, and the public was
in consequence doomed to read nothing
but the I0-eent magazine OF popular
taste.
A Clientele of the Intelligent.
The remedy? II is so trite that one is
almost ashamed 70 mention IL. 1t IS 10
organize the drama as It is organized in
the countries where It hourishes most
TO band together the intelligent and thu
cultivated in support of a theater in
which acting should be cultivated per-
sistently and continuously as a fine art
in which plays should be produced. for
their popular value. 70 be sure. but also
for the refining and ennobling influence
they exert on public taste and conduct.
IN a word. the blame OF our present
predicament rests with those who might
establish q repertory theater and do not
In this universal slough Of despona
one foothoid of hope has for some years
been slowly rising. Alien as are the
foreign plays to anything native and
spontaneous. they are yet written with
literary and dramatic craft far above
the ken Of our managers and play
wrights Of the older school. Little by
little the more intelligent public has
walked up 20 the fact that the theater
and literature are not mortal enemies
but that unless sound. economical, ef-
fective stage construction goes hand in
hand with spirited. lively and telling
words, there can be no frst-rate drama.
It has learned the delight OF a well
conceived. well-built acting play. and is
less and less liable TO be amused from
the path OF good sense by the cbeapIy
5ocular or sensational fabricatiOns OF the
playhouse. Scattered and disorganized
as the cultivated public is, il may yet
be counted on TO throw the balance ir