Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-19
BY W. HERBERT BLAKE

TT THE American stage is saying
goodDy to the classics. II Is GER
u tainly lingering farewell. Romeo
had not half so hard a Job leaving
Juliet. Just as we soberly make up
our minds that the thing the public
likes is brilliant buffoonery or ileet-
footed farce. along comes some sag
gering fact to Jolt apart all our thee
ries. The stanch intellcctuals who dis
dain vaudeville are perpetually sur
prised at the strange delights Ma tin
Beck discovers In his gallery gods
First. he finds they fancy grand opera
Then II Is a revival OF Dickens char
acters which reminds us how little
human nature has changed since the
Victorian era. A stern old Greek
tragedy, wearing the garb of modern
melodrama stirs n storm OF applause
and hisses-evldence OF interest. ap-
proving and hostile. II the classics
are moribund they take n precious
long time a-dying.
1t is even more exasperating with
Shakespeare. Every manager you
meet states with an oracular tolerance
that the people don't like Shakespeare.
Perhaps he points TO the failure OF
some wretched road company In Ham
let" as proof. 1t is true that many
travelling troupes have done their in
nocent best TO drive Hamlet mad.
While the commentators were In ju-
dicial doubt about II the people have
made up their minds. Any great Dane
who acts the way many stage Hamlets
act would be shot instRnter by any
sensible village constable. But Ham
let. at his maddest, is not Shakespeare,
any more than place called broadway
IS the American theatergoing public.
Both lessons are hard for a follower
of the theater to learn. For the most
part Shakespeare wrote things TO
make us laugh, not cry or yawn. "The
Tanning of the Shrew" which Charles
.B. Hanford may interpret for us about
midwinter, Is a wilder and a Jo'lier
comedy than when Knights We're
Bold" or 1.-THE Man from Home" Some
sensitive folk think It brutal md talk
about II for weeks afterward with feel
ings of chivalrous aversion. Honest
suffra agettes become healthily militant
at once, or else shrewdly suspect that
Petruchio will not go unpunished for
his insolence in the good-n7tured give
and take of permanent matrimonial
felicity. But everybody who secs the
play finds 1t interesting, maybe irri-
tating And a show which st'rs your
bile nets just about as much cold cash
TO the box Office as one that merely
tickles your ribs.
Whatever my friends he managers
think about Shakespef :, 1t is pretty
plain some people think him myth.
Eddie Foy helped a little to dlsilluSion
them with this aspect of the CONNER
cial higher criticism. Before this sea-
son is over Robert Mantell and Louis
James, and perhaps a stock presenta-
tIon or two may help on the good
work But in the meantime 1t Is curl
Gus to observe the reluctant despair
with which so many writer's on the
drama talk about the shrewdest and
most practical chap who ever held
horses or bossed a rehearsal. A critic
I'm the Pittsburg Gazette-Tlmes quotes
a pained Shakespearean student who
h1ames the commerCialsm Of the age
for our ignorance of Shakespeare. 1t
troubles her because the upper gal cry
at a recent performance did not seem
TO appreciate the meter in which the
noble old lines are written.
That is just like Shakespearean stu
dent. 1t suggests the almost morbid
devotion Of the assroom and the lao-
,oratory. The Pittsburg critic appar-
ently is impress with the earnestness
OF his correspondent. for he casually
states the simple and impressive truth
that moro people are reading. snake
speare today than ever before. He cites
the significant fact that during Mr..
ha1lLell 5 Tet6Dl INGW III N
a substitution of 1.-THE Marble Heart
for Shakespearean plays caused
mighty tumble in the receipts at the
bog Office. The frightened managers
returned to Shakespeare, who always
reckoned with the box office by the sim
pie habit of understanding the public.
This, remember. was in New York-the
original stamping ground of "Follies''
and "Revues'-the same New York
that turned ont en- massa to greet Soth-
ern and Marlowe in Shakespearean rep
ertoire Mast summer. If New York is
still human, surely the rest OF the
country can draw a fresh breath or
blessed air and keep pegging away with
a serene conscience.
But the mana gers-and here | spe-
cificallv refer to recent interview
with Henry B. Harris-are sure that
the masses will never care for the
classical drama. (Mr. Harris also lives
II believe, in New York; Even If they
Gid, he soemnly comedies, he would not
produce it. because he doesn't know
how. never having made a study OF
that kind of thing. This is modest
talk, straight from the heart. AFTER
hearing the criticisms OF serious stu