The sun., 1903-11-29
THE REVOLUTIONARY DRAMA.
A WEEKS CROP Or PATRIOTISM
on THE STAGE.
What Is the Great American Play"-Feat'
ures Of Recent Historical Drnnas-
Types Of the Girls That Appear In
Them-Tai Talk OF Hero and Heroine.

ures OF Recent Historical Drnnias-
Types OF the Girls That Appear In
Them--Tail Talk OF Hero and Heroine
That grand old Trogodyte, Walt Whit
man, as the late John Swinton was fond
of calling him, sang many time and Oft
about "A new race, dominating previous
ones, and graEder far, with new contests
new politics, new literatures and religions
new invent ions and arts And he had a
rude manner Of assertion i VIII make
song for these States" or, -Americanos'
Conauerors! Marches humanit arian. fore
most Century marches! Libertadl
Masses! For you programme OF chants"
know that the last line sounds more
like an invocati ion ( o Sousa than an appeal
,othe nation, but they vii! serve with OF hers
az mapping out in lusty vocables he pro
gramme" for pat riotic Americans Of The
twent ieth century. The only thing miss
ing is mention Of the great American play
and the great American novel. Yet the
good gray poet lived in New York krew
Brooklyn and Bost on, and ended his long
and uselessfor was he not a poet? and
are not poets wonderfully useless?-life in
Camden. N. j. He should have sung some
thing about the great American drama.
He mentions ope ra and the stage in Leaves
OF Grass" yet never a word of the drama
and it's future in These States. Singular.
Is it not? Perhaps-and this is only the
thin end OF the wedge--he did not believe
that IL had a future. did not believe that
the great American drama would ever be
writer 1t is thought saddening in the
extreme TO many theorists.
But there are other younger poets who
have girded their loins to the task, young
sters, yet men Of mighty thew and snew.
l call them poets-they are poets of the
footlights, doing with canvas and curtain,
lights and gestures and significant words
what everyday poets, such as Tennyson,
Browning, Swinburne, accomplish with the
printed page The shibboleth OF these
theatrical poets is the American Revolution
They say. and yo,! hear them breathe with
vigor. Give US liberty or give lis melo-
drama!' Not being critically close in
matters of such moment we give them
both liberty and their right to exercise it
In matchmaking tales told out of school
about our first rumpus with England.
And how we have been bombarded by
this historical regiment For ten years a
steady stream OF indifferent novels and plays
has been turned upon publishers and man
ayers, and for the most part taken up into
the public consciousness matter how
bad the book, how weak the drama, they
both find their way into print. il notin
the case OF the latter-nto performance
The result has been charming. 1t has driven
one half the regular theatregoers into
Punishment. while the other and less critical
half has incontinently taken to musical
mush, the sort called comic opera, or ope-
retta, or musical comedy. From this low
estate there seems no prospect Of deliver
anoe. And the cry is Still they come!"
However, 1t is only fair to st ate that about
one-third Of the novels and plays published
within the decade are not American his
toric in subject. Those that are do not
belle their sub-titles They leap to your
eyes with their bouncing, beaming pat riot
Inn; an admirable quality in small boys
and politicians, though ono not always
of interest in art. l dare not attempt to
'recnilthe rebel" plays have seen. Oh!
that eternally sweet creature in hoop
skirts, wearing one-only one, mind you'll
curl on her shoulder; mixture Of molasses
tai1y and sunbeams You recall her! The
venerable ooored man who hobbies out
In Act l. always addresses her as Missy
Alice even after she IL welded. She
perveded "The Crisis"-that wonderful
novel which was read because Of the hist ory
imbedded In its depths, as coal is taken
from the mine-and she was also seen
when Julia Marlowe played her, though
could no more tell you her name or the
name of the silly play in which she figured
than | can remember the author. But she
exists. And she is not young, for she was
first seen in 1910, and her accent was South
ern, 90, the F. F. v. accent. Lo! She is he
daughter OF the grand old American revolu-
tion after all. and the chances are that
she will bob up at the close Of the present
century as something else-yet the girl
always, the girl with the soft Southern
patois and the injured look in her eyes.
We have had her here Just four times dur
ing the past month
What is the great American play? It
will be drama, of course, something Of q
compromise--let us hazard-between Clyde
Fitch and Richard Harding Davis a play
In which the Gibson girl will WOO the Fitch
boy, and all end we'll Or, shall the roll of
drums, the clangor of arms, the quick
tramp OF men. usurp the foreground, with
the usual insipid captain making the usual
lnSlplu love 10 tne extremely usuui llslInl
girl' In preference give us good, old
fashioned Academy of Music melodrama
with a mothers curse" ringing sharp and
clear in the middle Of Act III. Possibly
thkre will never come forth from the womb
Of time the great American play, for the
reason that that ironic arbitersof destinies
known as the Zeitqeist may pose terrible
question What is American? Is the North
American? Is the West American? Are
South and East American? Where is your
man who can fuse in mighty synthesis all
these antinomies? viii YOU Care to compose
drama in which Yankee and Hoosier.
Cracker and Canuck Ifor Canada, too, is
Amcrical Irish, French African, and Ger
man, Spanish, Chinese Italian, Dutch. Jap
anese, Hebrew, Russian. Polish and a hum
dred others are all repre- -ented? Or will you
grasp at certain sfens OF our national char
acteristics and weave them into the dra-
matte forms OF the Old World? The ghost of
Walt Whitman bars the way. 1t is not Amer
lean. camerodo' we hear him rumble. Why
not and now the Zoitgeist yawns-why not
wait for several hundred years and give
the nation chance to create collective
soul? 1t il thus far only profile, only
an exalted consciousness; within, the
chambers Of the soul ring hollow under the
footsteps Of sorrowing, poets. Give us