The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1908-04-26

""iSh eilhOet IooOhClleb MN 10 inc loss OF
America Just how an actor Is to express
In pantomime reconciliation 10 the loss OF
America II not stated. But q. BIS idea Of
American geography is r~udimentary. some.
how or other the British under Burgoyne
are In New Hampshire, where one Of them
says. i will undertake to do what we have
marched south (slo) from Boston TO do,
They did not march from Boston, but Can.
ada; they we're In the New Hampshire
Giants now Vermont, and Burgoyne was
not with them. The town boasts Of a Pres
byterian church, which Is almost As aston
ishlng as ~Rurgoyne's presence there. There
IL no nasal twang In the speech Of the
Yankees, They talk Shswese, This isn't
a play Of the American Revolution. II ID
just another toot Of q. BIS horn from his
cart tail.
In his preface he gloats over the fact that
when Mansfield produced The DEVILS Dis
cipls' In America In 1897 we hailed 1t as origi-
nal. when, as a matter Of fact. lie episodes,
complications. all lie melodramatio struc-
ture, Ia old as-as melodrama, What has
that got to do with the case? Nobody
cared about lie structure. A musician went
TO -Pell6as OF M6lisande' at the Manhattan
last winter, coming away 10 raw about
Mary Garden and the drama. But the
music?' he was asked. -Oh, the music
said he the music didn't bother me-
That's about the case with the story In
The Devils Disciple The Wit. the squi-
woke, the "diabolonian ethics the sense
Of a new, humorous and koenly alert mind
playing over and about a subject we're
with Mansfeld's acting) what pleased us
then, as they have pleased us since in other
plays by q. B. Shaw. Being all Shaw they
are all original, But by the same token.
THE Devils Disciple isn't a play about the
Revolution isn't an American historical
drama.
But for all its historical %inaccuracy, It's
lack Of true color and atmosphere, its en-
phasis not on the American point Of view
but on the Shavian. II Is the nearest thing
We have to a revolutionary war play, be-
cause it brings to bear on the subject more
style and intelligence. Mr.. Vroom marched
his red coats in and out last week with the
same scene showing behind Fort George
as behind Spuyten Duyvil. He did not
even attempt to show that rounded end
Of Manhattan Island, that dome Of rock
and woods, which must look even to-day
something as it did then save perhaps
for the change to second growth timber
the only spot OF our island that still
speaks Of the vanished days. Mr., Vroom
not npIy NaflaA In Rtala a uNalOARa mn that
hung together plausibly as Shaw's does,
but he failed even more c~onspicuously
than Shaw to create any true atmosphere
or color. And as for wit or style or satire
or character interest, his play was as barren
as a musical comedy. At least Dick Dad
06on. il he primarily breaches Shavian
philosophy, is fred by an under impulse
OF real patriotism. At least the Presby-
terrain parson, II he In reality should have
been a Congregational Calvinist, CLOVIS
with a hint Of the passions that blazed up
at Lexington and kept our army from
freezing at Valley Forge. Perverse mSlo-
drama 'The DEVILS Disciple may be.
and not American. But il 10 a mans play
at any rate. 1t is grown up. II does not
insult our Revolution, belittle our history.
Such trivial. puerile, theatrical. pretty
p~asteboard and red coated o~onoootions
as The Luck Of Macgregor' do belittle
our history, insult our Revolution. We
are quite right in refusing TO have any
thing to do with them.
But w are not r ght in supposing that be-
these bad plays fail TO interest US all
plays about our early struggle are doomed
20 failure. The American drama is just
now waking up 10 look about with a mans
eyes, TO put ideas and speculations and COM
ment where a few silly sentiments before
did duty, Great Divides" and "Witching
are succeeding the trivialities Of the
past. The drama is waking up, too, thanks
no small measure 10 Mr.. Belasco. to the
and genuine interest Of correct
detail and atmosphere. Our stage. in other
words, is reaching a point where a drama
Of the Revolution could be written and pre-
Bented in a manner worthy Of the theme
and satisfactory 10 a public that are not
always such fools as some folks would
have us believe.
1t would be a drama in which the ragged
regimentals' Of the Continental militia and
he red coats Of the British did not have 10
do duty at all times for the atmosphere;
where the spy plot-its possibilities surely
stretched nearly TO the end by Gillette In
Secret ~Service'-did not have to do duty
Tor the story; where the passion for the
Of liberty was the true motive Of
not the traditional and silly love
Of conventional drama. and where
he splendid characters Of some Of ouEearly
heroes found adequate expression and de-
,elopment. To write such a play is, less
han ever a. the past reoedes, not q task for
but a first rate talent, And our men Of
irst rate talents are just now too preoocu-
bed with problems Of the present to turn
,aok into history for their themes.
That ID, no doubt, q healthful sign. But
he busiest market place is the better for a
monument, non the lees; the preservation
landmarks has more than q sentimental
And dramas that shall worthily
vet forth our early history a. q nation must,
.fter all, be the basis OF a national repertoire,
I We are ever TO have a national repertoire.
England. more fortunate, has in her roper
DIRE classics Of every period to perpetuate
hose periods on the stage. We in America
lad no drama Of our own worthy OF the
lame till very r~ecentyears. II We are to
,erpetuate our past at ali We must recon-
Itruot il. And because any task Of hiStori-
,al reconstruction requires unusual knowl-
,dge and power, the drama Of the Revolu-
ion 10 still unWritten. But sooner or later
low, with the expansion Of ideas in the
american theatre, the development Of adult
consciousness In the native playwright. 1t 10
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