The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-08-30
BY ESTHER. GRIFFIN WHITE.

BY ESTHER GRIF FIN WHITE.
Marc Klaw and Lee Shubert ought
to get the chautauqua managers to tell
them how to do 1t.
For if they had taken a surreptitious
glance through the cracks last night
they could have seen an audience of
between three and four thousand peo-
pie more or less hypnotized by a pres
entation of "A Midsummer Nights
Dream" by the Woodland Players.
Shakespeare al fresco, so to speak,
has an inexplicable attraction for the
theatre-goer.
Why this is true is not. however. still
SO inexplicable as it might seem.
For the magic name of Shakes
peare" will conjure up high-brow Wis
ions and cover a multitude of theatric
sins.
He who has delightful shudders over
an attendance at the playhouse or
sneaks with palpitating heart into the
vaudeville, will proudly take an orches-
ira seat at a Shakespearean perform
ance held in the open.
Or what corresponds to an orches
ira seat
The truth is that there never was a
greater humbug than the Shakespear-
can.
For the reason that people like
Shakespeare" is not the reason they
think they do.
Shakespeare was primarily a drama
fist. Then a poet.
But first Of all playwright.
1t is a mistake to say that he is a
closet dramatist
That is, that he is better read than
translated on the boards. This is an
obession started by some fusty pedant
lecturing through his spectacles be-
fore a set of callow collegians.
Shakespeare an Actor.
Shakespeare, himself an actor,
whether good or Indifferent nobody
knows, wrote his plays for the stage.
And that they are admirably adapt
ed for stage presentation any mana
ger will tell you. Should the managers
deny it, try the critics. They will con-
firm this statement.
For Shakespeare knows superbly
how to arrange his climaxes.
Never is tragedy prolonged beyond
the point of endurance.
Nor comedy reduced to banality.
And his burlesque is such burlesque
as poets dream. 1t is burlesque subli-
mated.
Nonetheless Shakespearean tradi-
lions are somewhat archaic.
And therefore are only effective
when translated through the medium
IF superlative art.
This letter explains the tremendous
success of Sothern and Marlowe. For
their genius overcomes every handi-
cap met in the adaptation of Shakes
peare's plays to modern theatric stand
ards.
. These two great artists humanize
Shakespeare, in short, for the stage.
While this may seem anomalous in
that Shakespeare, of himself, lives be-
cause of his intense humanness, it
still is not so anomalous when you
consider that this very humanness has
been obscured through misguided lit
erary enthusiasts who have made of
the great dramatist sort of literary
DOGGY to scare the little theatre-goer
from the playhouse.
| And this is one reason why amateur
| Shakesperean presentations at col
leges and educational institutions are
not impressive to the practical stu
dent of the stage. The castles being
trained, as a general thing, by the in
structors in English and elocution,
who insist upon the literary interpre-
tation and whose knowledge of theat-
RIGS Is practically nil.
Satisfactory Presentation.
The Woodland Players gave a salts
| factory presentation of "a Midsummer
| Nights Dream" last evening, although
they were handicapped by the limita-
tons of the stage, which was entirely
too small to give opportunity for those
effects which are called for by the ma
ture Of the play.
The scenic effect, however, was
good. the lights being very we'll ar
ranged for the background of green.
| cry against which the figures were
/ silhouetted, and the company had the
very great advantage of a quartette of
mems voices through which were ad-
mirably interpreted the Shakespear-
can incidental music"
That these players are not theatrical
people was shown in their evident