Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-03-20
Drama as Social Force
Subject Brilliant Talk

The decline of the drama in the
present day may be attributed largely
TO the fact that the business of the
theatre has fallen into the hands of the
box Office manager" so said Mrs.
Beatrice Forbes Robertson Hale, in
speaking before the Rock Island
sWomans club at its March session
Saturday in the Masonic temple on
1.-The Drama as a Social Force" Con-
tinuing she said: People inherently
are not artistic. they do not appreciate
great art, they have to have a show
40 amuse them. 1t is the duty of those
of education to be leaders, to see that
she simple people have good shows. to
Boycott the bad and encourage the
good play. Here is where the box Of
flee has gotten the upper hand, the
manager who may OF may not have a
love for art. must produce something
glittering that will attract the general
public in such numbers as to place the
theatre on a paying basis. For this
reason there should be municipal play
houses. or those owned by amateur
clubs or by millionaires, where real
drama and art may have a chance for
the sake of it's own worth rather than
for what it can bring in box office re-
ceipts Then and then only can some
shing real come from the drama, real
W
will spring up native drama that will
play important parts as social force"
I Mr.. Hale began her learned and
eloquent discourse with brief history
of the origin of the drama, which she
showed far from being divorced from
Ihe church, had its origin with the
priests of the church who chanted
praise over their sacrifice Of a goat
from which comes the word tragedy
meaning goat song. 1t was originally
purely religious and took up in its
evolution those things nearest the
hearts of the people. Continuing Mrs.
Hale said in part:
IF anything like law could be
to have governed the evolution of the
drama above all other arts, il would in
all likelihood be this, that, throughout
the so-called golden ages, artists with
few exceptions. have in rational de-
gree subserved the preferences Of their
public.
The Greek tragedy works OF
sAeschylus, Sophocles, Euipides) with
sits slow-wound action, stately Trades
sand long breathed choral harangues
twas fashioned to the taste of the peo-
sple fond of philosophic expatiation, ad-
kdicted to dignified leisure, accustomed
sto manage their life to the order of q
pronounced aesthetic bias. So Shake
speare's drama, in its nervous move,
ments, its crate phraseology, its vivic
spectacular situations, was admirably
adapted to the pompous style of Eng
land during the later Renaissance, tC
audiences made up of cOurtiers anC
burgesses, armigerous both of them
and amply Injured to the tumults anG
atrocities of militant politics.
Medieval drama likewise started il
the church with rude communal SONG
as its basis Bible stories were later
sused as basis, the several episodes o.
sthe drama had each of them been de-
svised to illustrate the service Of some
Especial day of the church year; anC
tthey had each of them been first per
formed in Latin in the church by &c
Nclesiastics or chOristers. Then, after
sthe mystery was full grown it was fel
ito be too great a burden, and il wa:
Thrust out of the church. confided t
slaymen and translated into severa
svernaculars. The laymen who took i
gover to continue all the traditions o
THE performance within the church
yet sooner or later they were led t
5apply the same methods to secular
sstories Thus it was that in each q
the modern languages the drama haC
common religious exercise, and tina
in each of them it developed in accorC
with racial characteristics, so that il
slime there came to be wide differen
stiation between the plays performed
Sin the several tongues, although the,
swere all outfiowings from the same
Latin stock. That which was at frs
smore or less communal becomes more
for less individual, and what was a
first more or less spontaneous, be
comes more or less traditional.
so the period of the drama depictI
tthe kind Of drama and dramatic writ
Fers are seldom if ever prophets. usins
5only their art to hold the mirror III
Ito nature to reflect the part then en-
acted"
Mrs. Hale spoke OF the period o
Renaissance as the point of highest at
.tainment Of culture ever reached VI
TO the present day. Women during