Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-05
BY w. HERRERT BLAKE


~ er when an attempt at SIM
plicity in dramatic construction Is
made. 1t means that the managerial
viewpoint in committed to the farce
comedy idea of drama building-quick
changes and many of them. To the
success of a big, simple play like THE
Great Divide" or THE Servant in the
House" the managerial reply is simply
that the people don't know why they
like it, Which is quite true, but which
does not alter the fact that they do
like 1t.
1t is said to be vastly easier to write
a good thirty-minute sermon than a
compact fifteen-minute homily. The
reverse is often the case in the drama,
at least among experienced play
wrights. AS Hartley Davis observes in
the August Everybody's, THE master
craftsmen among the playwrights find
their chief trouble in making the play
long enough The more nearly they
approach complete mastery, the great
er is their capacity for condensation,
for obtaining the desired effects simply,
directly"
Yet the Procrustean demand of the
American playgoer has been for guam
tity, equally with and even before
quality. Out of this iron necessity has
grown the llldIldS CA Aell I'LL 81 AoA 0AIAtA
tions. 1t isn't a matter Of art, at all,
it is argued, but of two hours and
forty-hve minutes. These must be
filed, willy nilly, somehow. Hence the
situations. The public began by ac-
cepting them. They We're enjoyable.
They made men laugh, and women
cry, They spelled dollars at the box
office. But to say that the public
originally demanded them is absurd.
Il dor t1ar1 in oDUI1l4F-
priced vaudeville. They do demand
big show. They want the time occupied.
And in the case of the long play, the
only apparent filler, up to now, has
proyed the light, inessential elements
of incidental situations, in no way
cognate to the plot, frequently detract-
ing from it's strength, delaying the
action, wasting the emotions on i'm
material sympathies but inexOrable
as the rule of three or the theory of
economic determinism.
Then comes the reaction. Somebody
writes a Great Divide a Servant in
the House and reluctantly and skep-
tically the managers produce them.
They go. They win. The public flocks
to them, and nobody is so surprised ~
the managers, who at the same time
are careful to take full credit for thu
superior genius of discovering" them.
pealing to the purely American tradi-
tions of the last fifty years, assert
plausibly enough that the plays sue
ceeded in spite of their lack of situa-
tions 1t would be more accurate to
say that they succeeded because of
their frank reliance on simple, logical
characterization-the foundation Of
great as distinguished from merely
popular drama, as it is the basis of
VnUal and pT1fn There ie
action, to be sure, but it is action sub
ordinated to and resultant from the
qualities of the characters themselves.
1t is dynamic action, not static comedy
or pathos
Take "The Great Divide" for in
stance. Why has it endured locally
through two stock productions, follow
ing its road tour under Henr.- Millers
fostering wing? 1t has been truly said
that it is barren of situations-in the
sense that "Going Some" or THE Mar
of the Hour labors with them. The
answer is simply that it tells a straight
strong story of a man and a woman
and the mutual molding of theiI
characters makes the drama. In d
measure, it is play building of the
French school of Corneille and Moliere
rather than of Shakespeare. The con-
versation is big with dramatic import
The incidental situations are brusque-
ly left to perish of inanition. We
don't want them. We resent hunol
in this connection, as we should resent
oppressive tragedy in a farce And
we enjoy the play precisely as We
should enjoy its story told by somt
old frontiersman over a waning deS RI
fire in the hush of twilight. 1t is real
1t has the glimmer Of an ideal to IL.
lumine its dark places. And it touche.
the heart.
The farce comedies are not so, anC
should not be so. perhaps. "Goinl
Some" for instance, is positively un
wieldy with situations. all of then
laughable, possibly half of them keen
ly pertinent to the action. The SAM
abundance of incidental comedy is al
element of Shakespeare constructive
genius, because all bear a charmed re