The Greeley tribune., 1905-03-02
Amusements
"Evoryman."

the imperial theatre of England
during the coronation season-a play
that has been presented by special
request before the universities OF
oxford, Harvard and Yale, and that
has won from the most honored schoi-
ars, men of letters and eccleSlastlcs
in England and America, such praise
as has never been bestowed on any
OTTER production in the history OF
the modern stage; a play strange
thrilling and impressive: that mas
hushed into heart searching silence,
people of all degrees of education
and of every creed; play of simple
dignity and reverence that disdalns
many accessories of the modern stage
and that compels subordiuation OF
every part of the spirit of the whole; !;
a play that was venerable with age
when Shakeskeare and Marlowe were
yet unborn; play that was produced
by an age the ideals of which were
foreign to our own, and the intense
faith of which is in sharpest contrast
to the spirit of the present day, which
it rebukes. To see such 4 play rs
this is the experience which is offered
next Friday March ;, when the Ben
Greet players of London will present
the fifteenth century morality play
"Everyman" at the Greeley opera
house. Seats will be placed on sale
Wednesday, March /, at Horne S
Book store.
Helen Ring Robinson in the Den
yer Times prints the following criti-
cism of the play given at the Broad
way theatre last week:
LAS sat in my seat at the Broad
way last evening listening to the
naively impressive old morality play,
"Everyman," l realized more clearly
than ever before the intense modern
ness of that cant phrase, art for art S
sake
Medieval art had no time for such
aesthetic fripperies. Those were the
DAYS of art for life's sake. Art for
deaths sake also.
'"What must do what must be-
lieve to be saved?' was the insistent
cry of men S hearts. And with brush
and pen artist and priest, play
wright, each according to his fash
ion. sought to answer the question.
'Botticelli painted his holy tamil-
les, and one Peter Dorland, a
Dutch monk of DieSt, wrote his
'Elckerlyk' translated into English
some time during the closing years
of the fifteenth century under the
title of 'Everyman.
Very crude was their work, ac-
cording to our modern standard. l
have heard school girls call Botticel-
ii S MadonnaS 'pie-faced' and there is
certainly no glamour about the rude
pre- -Elizabethan lines of 'Everyman.
| But pictures and plays alike
possess one element which our modern
art and our modern life lack most of
all. They sound the note of sincerity.
Men believed in those days. SINGER
| ity is indeed the keynote of Every
man.. That ancient morality could
only have been written by priest
and for an audience to who the
teachings of the church were ever
living realities.
What is more, its production last
evening before Il Denver audience
even though that audience was
doubtless somewhat above the aver
age Monday night house il intelli-
gence-would have been quite i'm
possible had not the Ben Greet
players brought TO the presentation
\ like spirit of earnest sincerity. \
single jarring note.a lack OF genuine
ness in even one of the PLAYERS would
have made il absurd.
What vital force this sincerity
iS-whether in life or art.
1T is because our American art
today is almost utterly lacking in
sincerity that is a people we bow
down before the crudest aesthetic
ideals ever known among d civilized
nation. Ii is because American
artists are inspired by no relief at all,
save in the belief in the clink of dol
lars. that our contribution TO present
day art may be itly summarized by
the banal Gibson girl.
But that is only bv the way. II
you saw 'Everyman' at the Broad
way last evening the piece doubtless
sent you fumbling back in your men,
ory until you lighted upon Pilgrims
Progress, a book much praised and
little read nowadays. There is
good deal in common between the
two allegories. And there is little
doubt that the earlier work was in
Bunyan's mind when he wrote of
Christian journeyings. Perhaps he