Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-27

is mans heritage from the God in
whose image he was created.
When local managers bewail the lack
of plays available for stock company
production it may not be impertinent TO
suggest a revival of a few of the lighter
Shakespearean comedies. Since the
success of the Ben Greet tours and
many better invested productions in
the east the revival of such plays as A
Midsummer Nights Dream AS You
Like 1t" and Much Ado About Moth
ing is no longer an experiment, but
a matter of business shrewdness, so ap-
praised at the box office.
Here in Los Angeles we have a play
going clientele which is different from
that in any other large city in the coun-
try Cultivated people follow the week
to-week offerings at the Burbank and
the Belasco - people who have not
merely studied Shakespeare but read
and enjoyed his abounding humor. AS
a matter of observation, 1t is rarely the
"intellectuals" who attend a Shakes
pearean comedy, but that more or
binary run of folk who go to see
good show" "The Tempest st'-hoWeYer
the ANALYSTS rave over its hidden
symbolism-is constructively a good
show-a mammoth musical comedy, and
ought so to be played. "A Midsum-
mer Nights Dream" is written in some
what the same vein of gentle satire as
when knights We're Bold which the
Burbank stages this afternoon, or The
Road to Yesterday"
Those critics who ever itch to defend
the right of the drama to portray life
as it is good and evil fntermixed, rs
they avow they have found 1t, should
all be Shakespeareans and rabid foes
of the expurgating pencil. OF course
the author of Twelfth Night and
1.-THE Merry Wives of Windsor" does
not preach open RIGHTEOUSNESS as an
ennobling social accomplishment, and
thus he may be said to be behind GER
tain modern intruders into the dramatic
srnitbv. Shakespeare labored under the
amazing delusion that black is black
and white white, that decency is viz
tue and vice an ugly reality; but he
laid on his black and white with all the
vigorous recklessness of light-hearted
Elizabethan. He did not try to fuse
both colors into dirty gray.
The scholars have stolen our Shake
speare from US, while the owners of
the theaters sat by and let the THEFT
go on. That great rosary of dramatic
art was not made for the antiquary or
the classroom. Shakespeare wrote for
the stage, not the study; for the
crowds. not the Cosmos clubs, admir-
able as they are in their place in the
social scheme. And 1 confess l am
at a loss to understand why fair Rosa
lind in her forest costume IS not
fairer, more alluring picture of fe-
male loveliness than ZaZa in her dress
ing room or certain Lady and the
Tiger"
Again we hear that the wave Of mu-
steal comedy is receding I hope 1t
may leave us high and dry on shoal
of dainty comic opera.
As editor of this page in the Sun
day Herald, I am looking for actors
and actresses with dramatic hobbies.
Good 400-word articles on any phase
of theatrical life or art are welcome
here. | cannot offer any remuneration
for such, except the interest and ap-
probation of the Herald's ever in
creasing company of readers. Consult
our circulation books and mount the
hobby horse!
I laughed the other day when a press
agents advance notice informed me
that Mr.. Crooner's songs were from
his own pen, and therefore original"
And then, remembering the echoes
from I'll Trovatore" and Carmen"
which haunt one so strangely in most
musical comedy scores, ADMITTED 1t
was not tautOlogy, after all. The pla-
giarizing pen is mightier than the
copyright.
1t was a heroic task that Miss Flor
ence Reed accomplished last week
when she lashed her falling physical
strength night after night against the
entreaties of Manager Blackwood and
Director Hartford to fill the exacting
go IL, T 10,
and the Mouse" Sheer will power
conquered and few in the audiences
knew the price she paid to entertain
their two and a half hours leisure 1t
is good to know that the attack of
illness was as brief as it was painful
and that another of the little heroisms
of the mimic world is now only a
memory and a tradition of actors
nerve