The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-01-06
The Theatre.

We entertain the best of feelings toward
Rev Truman Kenworthy but our friendll-
ness does not restrain us from taking issue with
his recent wholesale denunc!arlon OF the theatre
1t comes with a shock of surprise that pubic
spokesman should be found so completely out OF
sympathy with of the m,ghtiest public IN
fluences that has ever been created by man. "A
condemnation so unmodifed argues not so much
an uncompromising moral principle as lack OF
familiarity with the subject in hand.
Twenty-Five hundred years ago the people OF
the Grecian peninsula were in the habit OF as
sembling for games and music. These sports
were intertwined with religious observances es-
pecially with praise and offerings to their god of
the vine and the orchard, Dionysis. In long
procession young men with olive wreaths in their
hair and young women with armfuls of fruit and
flowers made their way with chanting and dan
cling to some shrine of the god and there per-
formed their rites in his honor.
AS this habit of religious professions de-
veoped, the crowd gradually came to form into
some kind of order, various members began to
take singing parts and finally, speaking parts.
One group danced, another sang, another repeat
ed verses in honor of the deity.
Out of this spontaneous and uncaIculating
ligiOus abandonment the theatre began. From
step to another it finally made it's way to be-
come almost the greatest single public institu-
ton in Greece Once each year the state offered
tempting prizes for the greatest play. 1t was
from this rivalry that Aeschylus and Sophoces
sprung. Politics and religion, art and social mat
ters were presented on the stage they now
done in the pulpit and the press. What part it
played in the development of the highest form Of
ancient culture no modern scholar has the pow
to calculate but be know it enormous.
After the breakup Of the Grecan civilization
the theatre was transplanted to Rome, but here,
in response to the genius of the people, it became
the Roman circus with gladiatoral games and
festivities taking the place of comedies and
tragedies. AS Rome became debased all her in
stitutons declined with her, including as was
natural, the circus. So corrupt and so degrading
had it become when Rome fell into the hands of
Christianity that the early bishops placed it I'M
der the ban and forbade any further perform
ances. But in spite of this ecclesiastical excom-
municaton the theatre and the instincts which
gave it birth continued to function in secret.
Strolng players solitary minstrels, and rowing
bands of detached mimics went about through
the country districts giving little performances
to delight and please the simple rustic popula-
ton which at that day could neither read nor
write.
In spite of the condemnation passed on the
institution by the highest power in society at
that time, in spite Of the Examinations hurled at
acting by priests and bishops, the instinct which
demands the theatre would not down and finally
with that unconscious sarcasm often displayed
by historic movements, emerged inside the
very organization which had sought to quench it
The populace at that day was sunken in an
ignorance which it is difficult for US even tC
imagine. Preachers came to find that their ser
mons made no impression on so illiterate an au-
dience. But it discovered that the most
stupid dolt could understand the message of a
picture, consequently pictures came into wide
1t at this time that stained glass win,
dows with their depletion of religious subjects
came to be installed in the churches
And from pictures in the windows it was q
short step to animated pictures. The priests
argued that if the people could understand Bib
lcal story when pictured they might also easier
understand it when acted.
1t was thus that the morality and miracle
plays of the Middle Ages originated. Priests anc
nuns were the first actors. The church altar was
the first stage. Religious literature was the first
source of the drama.
1t from this beginning that the present
day stage finally developed.
From morality and miracle plays it was not E
long step to the moving stage in Ben Johnson's
day or to the permanent theatre of Elizabethar
times. From the Elizabethan stage with its
heroic mouthings the theatre emerged into the
more intimate Queen Anne playhouse with its
conversational drama And from the Queen Anne
drama it has been short step to the New Yorl
PLAYHOUSE and to the Gennett.
At every stage of this progress the theatre
hos had ico
authorities sought to destroy it in the older day.