The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-23
The PEOPLES THEATER
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
BY Frederic j. Haskin. Director
Washington. ID. O.

VirOned by towering chestnut Trees
has recently been erected the newest
American Institutions government
theater.
1t was built by Col. w. w. Harris,
who is the army engineer in charge
of Washington's parks and grounds.
A leading spirit in promoting the idea
was Mrs. Christian Hemmick, lady
of some local fame as a dramat1st,
who has been author and stage direc-
tor in a majority of the theatrical eff
forts put forward by Washington So
ciety folk Mrs. Hemmick has al
ready given two plays in this new
sylvan theater. A sort of restoration
of the Continental congress has also
been staged there and a local Patrick
Henry, correctly costumed, has stirred
the multitudes by demanding liberty
or death.
At the second and most recent per-
Torrance in the Sylvan theater, there
occurred an incident whose signiti-
canoe is perhaps not truly appreciat-
ed. A number of reserved seats had
been set aside for prominent digni-
taries of various sorts-leaders in art,
society, diplomacy and other invited
guests. But the iglitaries were late
in arriving, and outside the reserved
seat section was an impatient crowd of
small boys. The small boys rushed
the ropes in force and took possession
of the seats, and there they stayed.
They saw the show from close up, and
the invited guests had to sit on the
grass a hundred feet away.
These plebeian intruders apparently
appreciated the fact that this sylvan
theater, with its sodded stage and
shrubbery wings and dressing rooms
its sounding board of chestnut trees
has been erected out of the federal
funds of the United States of America.
1t is free for anyone to use, provided
only his presentations are moral and
uplifting, to use the words of Col
Harris. This is no place for pioneers
of the new art, for ultra-realists or dis
ciples of such shocking fellows as
Shaw and Brieux and Barker This
is a free theater but is no bargain
counter for Damaged Goods" or any
thing else along that line. A sylvan
theater is adapted to the spectacular
rather than the intimate, anyway So
within certain necessary limitations
of subject matter this is theater for
all of us.
Every American from Oshkosh to
Tallahassee, as the congressman say,
and from Boston to Berkeley is a
r1ghtful part owner in it and ought to
know about it and be interested.
When you come to Washington, look
! it over. If you feel moved to make
speech or recite a piece, hang your
coat on bush and go to it. If you
want to get up a little show, if you
belong to a choral society, or a banjo
club or a male quartette, and pine
for wider fame than your home town
affords, here is your outlet. You
| can't charge any admission, but
neither shall it cost you a cent for the
use of the stage.
The sylvan theater idea is one that
has been growing for several years,
along with the interest in pageants,
depicting the lives of town and coun-
! ties, and outdoor and folk dancing.
1t is hard to say just what is back of
| this movement. Perhaps that slow
moving and inchoate but all power
/ full intelligence, known as the people,
feels that the drama it sees on the
stage is no real expression of its
thoughts and feelings, and so is try
/ ing to create drama of its own.
| Certain it is that the folk drama and
the folk dance are coming back. A
good many people think that the
American commercial drama is going
| back. Perhaps there is significance
in these two contemporary move
ments. Perhaps some village pag-
cant writer will develop into a genius
who fires the groundlings as did
Shakespeare i'll Elizabethan days, and
perhaps out of this movement will
develop a real American theater,
which will not have to import most of
it's comedies from England, it's light
operas from Vienna, its fantasies
| from Ireland.
At any rate it is certainly a healthy
thing for the drama to get outdoors
again. That is where it was born
The Greek tragedies were given in
the open and so were the Miracle
Plays. A good deal of Shakespeare's
work was done outdoors.
AS soon as the play was put in a
house, it necessarily underwent ire
mendous notifications. In the first
place, not nearly so many persons
could attend. Limitation of spa ce
and price kept them out. This made
it possible for a few persons who con-
stdered themselves more cultured than
! others to give highly intellectual plays
to highly intellectual audiences with
out arousing the ire of the ground
lings This tendency to segregate the
theater away from the common peo-
pie no doubt resulted in some coed
things and some bad ones. But when
an art no longer appeals to all of
us, 1t has lost its potency as a civil
lzlng force, and quickly decays. All
really great art and especially all
great drama has been popular
OF course, putting the drama into a
house improved it in many ways The
actors no longer had to shout and bel
low. Furthermore they were COM
PEELED to refine their art by studying
manner and meditation and learning
to use the expressions of their faces.
In the old outdoor drama they wore
masks, and boys regularly acted the
female parts. 1t would have been i'm
possible in the old outdoor theater
on the village green TO stage a play
where the wiping away of tear from
the heroine's left eye is an important
bit of business, or where a look of
horror on the face of a listening man
thrills the audience. Most of the
audience would be too far away to
get" these things. The outdoor
drama has to be spectacular and SON
Orous
The new Sylvan theater at Wash
ington has not yet attracted very
wide attention, and yet everyone
should know that it is here-a thine
of tremendous possibilities. Our COM