The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-03
BY DOLLY DALRYMPLE

Didn't you feel like giving up the game after such broad criticism?" I asked.
 Not at all." Mrs. Rivers said briskly. Tt was challenge to do better. I saw his classroom would not be tame He promised not to read it to the class until I had time to re-write it; and lent me certain books from his private library. and l hastened to Whittier Hall and my monastic little room and with locked doors, dinnerless and absorbed I and the books merged! I had the rules of the game-the dramatic verities I felt like an X-ray I tore at the very vitals of those books. The city streets grew still the gray dawn turned my electric lights dim and yellow: still I read on By and by took up my offensive last act and re- read it. And then I said: No, I just body and soul had chill. It did seem abomina- ble. So bungling, so amateurish. Pouff! Then and there I swore I'd write 1t as 1t should be written if 1t took me until doomsday."
 Have you?'' queried, interrupting the narrative.
 Not yet" Mrs. Rivers said very hon. estly. ''I am at it still"
 ''Well, did MT. Baldwin read 1t to the class"
 He did but was kind enough to walt until had rewritten 1t ONCE-no twelve times from opening to end I wrote it, she said
 That took physical labor" I suggested.
 And mental strain, she replied. Al ways MT. Baldwin would cry: Boil down, concentrate, eliminate Focus on the in- terest point of the lives being portrayed until came to believe that drama was the essential oil of human conflict. Ger tainly mine has the essential oil of my brain and spirit-crushed out, wrung out He admires Pinero as 8 master of con- struction. l do not like the modern French school. It is either immoral or immoral always, but clever, sophisticated. suave, elegant and of perfect technique. It frankly treats of sex relationship only unless 1t sees fit to masquerade moral in animal or fowl phantasie. This class work was all of intense interest One of my first duties was to compare Suder- mann's John the Baptist and Augustus Thomas As Man Thinks One big, mystic, verbose, with S3 scenes dn the French sense), a prologue. The other like a modern automobile racer, everything eliminated but the structure. the engine. the oil. With such a critic behind me I learned to be careful For instance, fin one place fin my play had written solil oquy. (They are tabooed now; but imagine Hamlet without hisD It was dear to my heart. It lifted the curtain so neatly on the workings of my heroine's inmost na- ture. Just below 1t. in the margin he pencied in red. sAddressed-addressed to whom? Please state!
 "A small eye-opener--eh? Mir. Baldwin was like pair of shears with super natural activity. Just let me luxuriate in bit of verbosity-snip! he'd go, and my lopsided literature would be sheared! It was more fun! Of course we went religiousy to the successful plays. Were taken to rehearsals and behind the scenes. You see the motive power--there! We saw also the woes of the poor playwright. who was 'sheared' after he was accepted and in the process of staging. The coach would strike out "a line-put one in. The manager would VOW some pet passage would not get across the footlights Most dire of prophecies, The star would in- sst on changing a bit here and there, and if (as unfortunately is so often the easel she happened to be the producing man. agers affinity for the time, she'd get her way, and the poor playwright would be mutilated some more. You know the whole thing is a great gamble Wall street itself sees no keener. more malev- olent deadly scuffle for power, prestige and sheckels than is waged within the shadow of the Times Square between the great producers. Take The Daughter of Heaven. the great Chinese play running now at the Century. MT. Tyler told me himself that he had put s250,0oo in staging this play. If 1t takes he's made, If It