New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-04
rBE ROLE OF THE UPHOLSTERED ON BROAD
WAY AND PICCADILLY.


THE ROLE OF THE UPHOLSTERED ON BROAD
WAY AND PICCADILLY
The writer was certain he had heard severai
times before references to commercialism IN the
theatre. and Mr.. Macdougall was requested to
specify what he would do about l.
"As things are at present" he replied the orig
inal artists of the theatre are for the most part
barred or driven from the theater. The uphoister-
er.rules The theatre is conducted like drygoods
store And any draper of average accomplishment
could present all that is presented in most OF the
plays on Broadway and Piccadilly.
"The we'll known Brown writes play Brown
is safe; end so is his play. syndicate is formed;
q star is engaged; theatre is booked; the agent
told to send round company; the scene painter
arranges the scenery; the store, the furniture
"The company is rehearsed. All the conventions
are strictly observed.
"Up goes the curtain.
"Nether dramatst, director, producer nor per-
formers for this congomeration, needed to know
any more about the inner side of acting, or drama,
than do shopwalkers, and mannequins, and base
ball managers
zone of your papers has a witty headline every
day: Drama and Athletics
"Mon"y can do all these things, but money can
not give works of art cannot choose artists;
cannot express a soul it has not got. 1t can eI-
press athletics. And does"
1t was suggested, as gently as possible, that the
substance of what he had just been asserting had
been said many times before, and that the ideas
were not, therefore, new as they might be-
though delivered in highly animated and forci-
bic
"As if any idea could be newt" came back Mr.
Macdougall, like a shot from a rapid-fre gun
Columbus would blow west to go east? The idea
was five hundred years old. They would deign to
look over his plans. The willy king steals them
and hands them to Don Somebodio, with an OUTFIT
and all
"Who was Columbus. anyway Don Somebodio
gets blown back in the first gale. That's Don
Somebodio all over. Don Somebodio never yet
since the beginning of the world did anything but
help to wound or to kill. Don Somebodio never
gets anywhere. The real, practical men are all
dreamers"
Before the writer had finished putting the in
quiry the Scotch actor-manager caught the drift
Of the remark and, while walking up and down
the studio asked himself half a dozen questions,
and replied to them as follows:
what is the latest product, the product of this
day, this hour, in dramatic representation? An
tonnes? Reinhardt's? Decidedly no! They and
their works are all reactionary
THE latest turn IN the drama Is the photo-
drama. The humble movie!
Bernard Shaw has put in word for the movie
But Bernard Shaw--long life to him!-is getting
old If G. b. S. young as he once was. he
would have told you pointblank that the photo
drama is the only genuine dramatic product of the
day after Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Brieux
"All the rest is mere fumbing.
Even Americans have been sneering at Amer
lean drama, not recognizing that under their own
noses they have been shaping the only true dra-
matte form in these days.
but is it art?
"Never doubt it! Crude art, if you like But
vet art AS much art as that that Shakespeare
found crying out in Ezabethan streets, waiting
for somebody to regard it, AS much art as
Eschylus found in Thespis; as Vega found at the
Castan fair; as Moliere found in the booths of
Italian comedy.
1--WE await the who will turn this tech
niuue Of the photo drama to the account OF the
competer theatre. Mind you, / do not say lit
erary theatre: for not even Shakespeare and
Molere were literary dramatists in their own
day. Just as the supreme forces in letters to-day
are not the conservative tterateurs, but the jour
nasts The new drama will make the photo