Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-22

NOUS rewards OF play writing. Those
facts and figures are known to everybody
so many idiotic nom facts printed to OF.
set these figures and calculated to deter
| competent people from undertaking tho
work of writing for the stage that it is
engaging to read them.
1t is given out. for example. that there
Is a sort OF conspiracy among producers
Of plays to keep play-wrlting taienS
down; that even IL they burn the mid
night oil and struggle to finish plays they
cant get a hearing for them: that they
can't get access to the offices of play pro-
access and submit their plays, the plays
are calmly chucked into pigeonholes and
never read; and a great and wearisome
amount of utter nonsense OF the same
general sort.
Reads the Plays Himself.
II wish every man and woman capable OF
writing a play could know how completely
different the actual facts are. am only
one OF many producers OF plays. and yet
there Is hardly night that don't take to
my rooms. In New York or wherever else
/ may be- the manuscript OF some play to
look over / don't trust my own people to
read them and give me their verdict. I
want to be sure for myself that I am not
letting anything worth while get away from
me. There is never an hour while l am on
"
man or woman. who scribbles on his or her
card that he or she wants to see me about
some play that he or she has written. I
want to see such people and talk viii
them. And most OF the other theatrical
managers are the same as In that respect.
Plays that are sent in to theatrical man.
ayers are all read. They are often read by
two or three people. carefully. painstaking-
ly. Some of the best plays that have been
produced during the past twenty years have
been got hold OF that way, and is II imag-
Unable that theatrical managers are taking
the chance OF losing opportunities OF get
ting hold Of material that they are spend
Ing thousands OF dollars and wasting wor-
ried days and sleepless nights trying to OBJ
tain? The trouble Is that the great mass.
the overwhelming mass, OF this material
that is being submitted to us and that we
are reading all the time Is of no value. II
Is work done by people who don't know
how. The people who have 1t In them to
learn how, who. with a course OF instruc-
ton In dramatic construction. could pick up
the exact know-these people are scared
away from attempting their hand at the
work by the stories that are constantly be-
ing circulated about the difficulty Of getting
hearing or reading for plays. The peo-
pie who haven't got 1t in them aren't scared
by anything and they try 1t on. and they
turn In their impossible stuff. The COM
petent ones are folks OF such sensibilities
that they are shooed away in advance.
That's the reason that there Is such a pau
city OF dramatic material In the United
literally thousands Of men and women in
this country who. with little study lit
tie applicat ton. little grit could write
plays that would gain for them both fame
and wealth. l myself know probably ,..irty
or forty lazy. Idle. good for nothing men OF
absolute genius whom / have been trying
to get to write plays for me for years.
They've all got that horrible fear that they
might do a little work on a play and have
1t rejected. and then look where they'd bel
They'd have lone some work!
The Genius of Hard Work.
THE immense difficulty OF writing ac-
ceptable plays is another thing that is ex-
aggerated. The men who are writing tho
most successful plays today In this coun.
try are not such remarkable geniuses when
you come to know them They're merely
men who have applied themselves. Several
OF them haven't even any especial felicity
in the use OF words and they have to go
elsewhere to have their phrases rounded OF
when they get the ideas framed up dra-
natically. To write a play, must OF
course know the mechanics OF the stage.
but there is nothing colossally difficult
about the mechanics of the stage when all
Is said and done, and anybody who wants
to can master that end of the business.
Then, given a sense of construction, pro-
fciency In the use OF the English language.
bit Of eloquence. some humor. and. more
than all, heart. and anybody can write a
play that has rafting good chance OF
being accepted and produced.
THE best writers of plays In this country
at the present time. let me observe q
bit of a side fact, are writing more Tor men
than they used to. Time was. and not so
very long ago, either, when all OF the
play writing was done to meet the emo
tional exactions Of women audiences. They
were made pretty sugary for that reason.
and, let me whisper, also pretty f1ubduloby
and highfalutin and extra-exalted in sylla-
rubbish sentiment. That was all very well
in its way, seeing that women are really
the greatest theater-goers. but it began to
be observed that men were staying away
the most. and then something had to be
done to reca ptivate the male theatergoer.
1t got that when a mans women folks
raved over some play. he'd quietly say to
himself. that must be a pretty soft-soapy
sort Of affair. and l guess I'll just stay
away from that
80 the playwright had to hit upon a
happy medium between a dlstinctively wo-
mans play and an exclusively woman'S
play. and that result is being better accom-
plished all the time. To make myself more
clear, you Will not find one man out OF
fifty in these days who will willingly sit
through Camille no matter who the peo-
pie are playing 1t: yet the women still rave
over Camille Something must be done
to retain the average man as a theater-
goer, since II Is as certain as fate that
men are becoming utterly sick of the kind
of extravaganza shows that used to ap.
peal to them.
Another thing with regard to the male
theater-goers: Paste 1t carefully In your
hat band: There will be smoking in every
theater in the United States within ten or
fifteen years at the outside l submit that
prediction without any comment or reasons
whatever. But it is a thing that Is going to
come to be-" CLARENCE L. CULLEN.
Size of Religious Sects.