Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-11-29
In the Spotlight

GGD EER GYNT." at the Mason last
week, aroused the usual wave
Il OF discussion "about it and
about" and litterateurs and savants
who address women's clubs unraveled
many tangled skeins of esoteric SYM
bolism and transmogrifying idealism.
There's nothing like it.
Here is what one OF the Ibsen oracles
said before a local woman's club;
"Mr. Louis James shows the most pro-
found and penetrating insight into the
elusive problems of Peer Gynt.' 1t Is
this power of a thorough understand
ing, and an intellectual as well as an
emotional appreciation Of these hidden
mysteries of the drama that makes his
acting SO effective. The play depends
largely upon the powers of the actor
to make it Ineligible. By man who
did not understand it, Peer Gynt
would be unactable."
Here is what Mr.. James said about
IT when asked whether he thought
peer Gynt' was intended to be a
symbolicai drama:
You have the best Of me; / don't
know anything about il. never read
the poem. never saw an Ibsen play
acted, never have read discussions of
1bsen, and l am not interested in it.
If Peer Gynt' has any deep hidden
meaning, I don't profess to know what
It is. It's all in the days work with
me. I'll talk with you about anything
but Ibsen; don't know anything about
him"
Richard Harding Davis, in a recent
article in an eastern magazine, scores
dramatic critics on the ground that
they take themselves more seriously
than they do the play. Ibsen has suf-
fered more from writers of this type
than any other dramatist. The west
is less afflicted than the east with
these erudite persons who try to elbow
their entire ego through a tin horn. I"
and it undoubtedly is true that Ibsen
plays have met with more intelligent
or at any rate ineligible discussion,
in western cities than they have in
New York and Chicago. The owl-like
wisdom of these eastern writer's, their
ornate and elaborate Technology, and
their tendency to find symbolism
and allegory where it is not intended,
has frightened ordinary folk, and Ibsen
is the goat.
It must be admitted that there are
profound problems of life in Ibsen's
dramas. But even the weirdest tam
giles of sociology and psychology often
reduce to marvelously simple terms in
their last analysis. Art is art when
it finds q point of contact with truth,
and truth Is revealed by experience.
The man on the street If he finds some
system of thought to crystalline his
ideas, may have as far reaching in
sight into the problems of life reduced
TO their lowest terms as the college
professor, or the man who makes
learned talks before women's clubs. An
audience of working men kept Presl-
dent Eliot of Harvard sidestepping
for an hour in New York. If one of
the old scholastics, wise In the subtle
ties of learned discussion. should adj
dress one of the average plumbers To-
calls in a big city he probably would
get the worst of 1t in debate.
From the complexities of the poetic
psychological drama to the straight
from the-shoulter, hard hitting "Clans-
man" is quite a leap. Mason opera
house patrons will take the hurdle
gracefully tomorrow night. Interest
ing as the Peer Gynt" presentations
q tax; and replacing the highly
wrought creations of the Norwegian
dramatist, the flesh and blood charac-
ters and melodramatic intensity OF the
South Carolina playwright offer vel
come change.
The sensational significance of ''The
Clansman" seems to be in its setting
forth the white side Of the black ques-
ton. 'Uncle Toms Cabin" gave the
world the negroes side. Those who have
been brought up on Mrs. Stoves work
as the immortal classic of the anti
slavery agitation find it hard to realize
that the southerners still commonly
regard it as a libel on Dixie. Such al
any rate 1t appeared to Thomas Dixon
ir., when ne undertook to answer II
with "The Leopard's Spots and 1.-The
Clansman."
THAT the white people of the south
have a certain amount OF reason and