Evening star., 1911-06-04


Broadway In the storehouse cozy corner popular
y" is still reposing far from the maddng crowd but
the offspring of Popularity" "The Man Who Owns
Broadway" which resembles its father in everything
but scenery and seriousness, is still travelling round the
country migratory evidence of the infalby of that
greatest of dramatic critics, MIR. Joseph Batz, Jr
X/HEN Young America gets out of school at
w time, what does do? 1t wants to laugh,
of course. Reading tng, and nthmetic are the tears
of Young Americas fe and when the bell dries
these tears, tag and leapfrog and baseball called
upon make the eager of the mouth turn up
ward When Older America gets out of school-or busi
ness-at time in the evening, what does it want
do? 1t wants to laugh just Young America wants
And it calls upon the theater to dry tie tears or
sweat, of labor
| had rather make one man laugh once than one hun
dred men cry one hundred times. That is why fill my
plays with laughter rest content to leave the drana
c tears to other writing hands. Sentiment does not
love you" without bawling American love making IS
different from Continental love making And American
love making good enough for American audiences! If
of characters says, q" love you Sweetheart and
you to be my wife; but I'm dl, at the office in
five minutes" the sentiment rings just true in Amer
lean ears would, @Ah, loved one, adore you-rny
star-rny little moonbeam / will remain at your side
forever!" In fact, it rings whole heap truer.
In the matter of humor to get back to our subject
nothing pleases an American audience so much as
laugh. know this has been said before; but want to
repeat it. Why? Because not all grown up folks will
agree with All youngsters will you that they
had much rather laugh than cry-n real life mean,
as it were, up to Nature
Children honest about their feelings Their elders,
unfortunately, are not always so. Il like serious
play the elder Mr.. Blatz will inform you. He forgets
to say, however, that he likes laughter more. If
you have little and daughter, you have undoubt
edy heard them say that they do not care to go to
sad play Fundamentally, in this regard, are all
Peter Pans. We grow up Serious drama once
in awhile, maybe, but not regular diet. Mind you,
again, speaking of the American theater.
goer And if laughter and the decline of the DRAMA
We IN
set me down as an apostle OF declined drama!
nUR love for melodrama is an echo of the time when
~ we, you and l, were Joe Blatzes, rosy checked,
rompng youngsters, with good heads of hair clear
eyes, and gigantic appetites for jam. Remember how
used to be melodramatic in sports and even in
our reading? If we not "paying Indian
reading Edward S. Elliss Indian stories. If we We're
not crookng arms and having the other kids in
the neighborhood feel our muscle, we were reading
Algers fighting up from the ranks yarns We played
being policemen and remen. We raced desperately
against another. first rocking horses. then on
little velocipedes. We put fathers old blue
and had awar" with beanshooters in the back yard.
Yes and, now that we are grown up, lets admit 1t:
We used to read dime novels! Ah yes indeed we were
some melodramatc back in the kid days-and boys
will be boys long this big round ball moves on its
axis The "two-dollar heart remains the as the
"two pin heart the heart of the audience that paid
two pins to see the show the neghbors Youngsters gave
in the old barn. Those shows written terms of
cap pistols lassos masks, and other implements OF meo-
drama. And the shows we want to see-down in our
honest eternally boy1sh we grow up are
just Celebrations of the good old barn performances
do not to be fippant in the slightest degree.
do not mean to insinuate that the American public
may not be an art loving public and all that sort of
thing Not at ALL 1 merely mean to indicate, as best
| can from the light of my remunerative expert
ence that after all the psychologists done with the
two-dolar heart and after all their scientific deduc
tons announced, the simple fact remains that the
deductions are not half so mysterious and complex
the psychologists may try to make us believe.
In the long run, the average man, entering hat
the average will usually buy his theater ticket
for that style of performance that will suit him best.
He may permit himself to be fooled by extreme fashion
twice; but what suits him fundamentally will