The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-03


 plays to realize the drain even one management can make upon what is after all limited supply of capable leading actors. For example, we have called for a hundred actors for the proper casting of Conan Doyles The Fires of Fate But besides this we have the big musical piece The Ar cadians' calling for a cast of over a hundred; a new farce. The Brass Bot tle'; the new WinchelI Smith comedy Love Among the Lions: Henri Batail- lies drama The Scandal and Pinero's Mid Channel which we are prepar- | ing for Miss Ethel Barrymore And by a leader among actors you mean, MT. Frohman?'
 "I mean that if in casting a play l you can find an actor that looks the part you have in mind for him. be thankful; if you can find an actor l that can act the part, be very thank full: and if you can find an actor that can look and act the part, get down on your knees and thank God"
 And such actors are becoming few er?'
 ! "No but the stage is on a sounder basis; the theatre is more prosperous than it has ever been and the num- Der of good plays waiting for pro- duction is greater than the number Of good actors waiting for positions. y "In other words, plays are being born faster than actors are being made?' is ventured
 1 Well playwrights are and so are playwrongs. In an average theatrical season fifteen hundred play manu- | scripts are sent to this office, They are read. a written report is made of l them and often some discussion is carried on with the writers. It usu- ally turns out that the makers of these plays are men and women-most- ly wonlen-in walks of life as far re- moved from the theatre and it's re- quirements as they are from the art Of the sculptor, the painter or the mus ical composer. Yet these candidates for first night i1onors do not try to carve statues, paint portraits or com- pose symphonies They seem to think that a technical Knowledge would be necessary to do any of these things but to write plays ones only require ment is a bottle of ink, some paper and pens.''
 And as a rule all these plays are pretty bad?"
 l "No. not all. But by actual calcu- 1 lation the grains of wheat turn out l to be less than one per cent of the volume of manuscripts received. But 1t is healthy sign. this general habit of playwriting. It means that the theatre is interesting the people as a 1 whole. When there are a multitude of unknown playerwrights I know that there are multitude of unknown playgocrs, because the great incentive to playwriting is playaoing But the trouble is that the plays they write are often not much n.ore than them | selves set out into the plays they have seen. This is so true that I car often tell just what theatres these un- known playwrights have been attend ing merely by reading their manu- axvar r,vola r ter that l have just written to . young woman telling her that I also like The Harvest Moon,' Samson and 'The Climax, but that is not 8 sufficient reason Nor me to produce hel play. But am never irritated by epidemics of playwriting, because while I believe great playwrights may be born. I know good playwrights are made by continuous practice and by the lessons learned in the hard schoo of experience
 And the test of good play as you read it?
 "Ah, if there were only such 2 thing as an unfailing test of a gooG lplay, the philosophers stone we tall of would be so much junk in compari son with it's value. There is no ab solute test of good play. but per sonally I always know a good actins play if when I read it in manuscrip can see the characters in pantomime just as I know that a play which get personally fond of is sure to fail
 But I am fast getting to believe that failure is a matter of locality that what fails in New York is pret. ty sure to succeedin London, as Clyd. Fitch's The Truth did, and what fail: in London is pretty sure to succeed in New York, as was shown whe1 John Drew made a success of Broth CT Officers ''
 And your own ambition?" you in quire as you uncoil ready for depar lure.
 My ambition, frankly, centers il the welfare of the actor. The day. work holds out to me no finer gratifi cation than to see intelligent, earnest deserving actors grow into the fam, land fortune of being stars