Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-12

the abiding distress of the serious per-
son. I frankly confess that ] am its
unsolicited champion. / do not care
for the gallery. If l sat there, it would
cease to be the gallery for me. 1t
would be merely home, which is too
dear to be tantalizing. But l respect
and admire the gallery, as one respects
and ad1nires brave and honest men
with whom one Is more apt to quarrel
than agree. And above all | envy the
gallery its humor and good cheer
That, l think, is the crux of the
whole question. The gallery does not
annex itself to the theater for pur-
poses of study or devotion. 1t finds
itself aloof from the main floor, and IL
dumbly resents the separation by
laughing at the supercilious intensity
of the aristocrats down below. Some
times its laugh is like the shrek of a
cruel whip and sometimes its savage
scorn bites deep. It's tears are silent,
but they are far more awful and heart
rending than the spasmodic and meth
odical sobs of the orchestra mourner
who comes for that delectable purpose
The combat of the atoms from which
science might derive an allegory, II 1t
would, is the combat of the modern
theater. Roughly stated. IT is the con-
hict of belief and revolt. the centripetal
and the centrifugal, the will TO accept
and the duty to enjoy.
The great thing about the gallery
is its determination to have a good
| time. 1t wants its moneys WORTH
which, rightly understood. is a grand
and consuming passion. 1t is re-
solved to laugh and not all the solem-
nifty and terror of tragedy can quite
subdue its intention. 1t will laugh at
lbsen, which is thing few of us are
brave enough to attempt. for Ibsen APP
nm Ia ~ Ia ga1f
IT will jeer at artificial sentimentalism
or pedantie morality with all the
abandon of a thing which is innocent
of either. 1t may pity, but II will not
whimper and it will no coddle. Even
its unblushing guffaw at indecency is
Rabelaisian and wholesome If IL
laughs at smut. even that is better
than to surreptitiousy rejoice in 1t, as
have some sybaritic schools of esthetes,
ancient and modern. II is entirely pos
sible that st. George laughed in the
Jaws of the dragon, as many a good
man has smiled in the face of death.
The gallery is not always right or
just or kind. Neither are its numer-
Gus critics. Democracy blunders and
crucifes and hurts tenfold more APP
pallingly than have many monarchies
The people really believe in them
selves-wherein they may be over
fanatical-while the kings of old mere
ly tried with occasional success to be-
lieve in a theory of divine right. The
gallery at a current melodrama re-
peatedly cheers the arrogant and
brutal hero as he sneers at religion
and browbeats a woman. That does
not necessarily mean that the gallery
approves of atheism or brutality 1t
may prefer the hero's insolent hon
esty to the heroine's somewhat pratt
ing and superficial confession of faith
Tbo ic n
innate ideas or the eventual results of
certain acts. 1t takes one thing at a
time. 1t does not quarrel with st,
Elmo's conversion, but it hopes the
good work will ultimately include the
environing band of sentimentalists.
The gallery is the furious foe of sham.
1t comes to the theater to laugh. There
is much sham on the current stage. So
the gallery laughs at sham. There are
PLAYS at which ii does not laugh. Some
of them were written by man named
Shakespeare. The silence of the gel
lery at a Shakespeare play, well acted,
say by an Irving or a Marlowe, is one
of the things the managers do not un
derstand. 1t is the union of the two
mightiest forces on earth, the man Of
genius and the Genius of Man. Each
understands the other better than
many managers and many critics will
ever understand either
There are gray days when to the reg
ular theatergoer who hates 1t the gall
lery seems to have burst its imprison-
ing letters and spread over the entire
house. To a black-garbed Puritan the
blazing Restoration playhouse may well
have seemed a gallery of noisome hor-
hors, a Veritable pit of hell. To any
sensitive and conscientious man the
sight of splendid revelry inevitably
suggests as a contrast the woe and
poverty of the outer world from which
il is momentarily sheltered.
The antithesis between lenten gloom
and a yuleude glee is as much an in
herent paradox of human nature as the
alienation of winter and summer,
night and day. tidal ebb and flow in
the terrestrial scheme. 1t is paradox
which every successful dramatist
knows to be the keynote to interesting
| conversation and the mutual play of
character through situation and climax.
The stage itself is a paradox-a CLEAN
of light in the midst of darkness, a
mysterious world within a prosaic en-
vironment, Pandoras wonder box and
it's perpleXing contents.
But the gallery is not there to be
perplexed or taught or upifted The
gallery goes for a feast. and it gorges.
Therein it is human, right and wrong.