The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-14

noon at 3:15 o'clock, for a meeting of the club. At this time the mem bers will have tLe pleasure of listen ing to an address by Mrs. Rollin Sher- wood of Westport on "Art and the War" Mrs. Sherwood, who is the librarian of the Westporr library, is an art student at Columbia Univers- ity and has been delivering lectures for the past four or five years. She is very interesting speaker and her talk will be well worth while.
 Tomorrow afternoon in her studio in the Court Exchange building the pupils of Miss Grace Dalrymple Clark are to give their first recital this sea son and a very delightful program has been planned. The program is ] divided into four parts and the first will be devoted to recital of the Saga of King Olaf' Those who will give the Saga are Miss Maude Latham, Miss Ada G. Woodruff, Miss Asenath Goodwin, Miss Ethel Beach, Miss Theresa Hegeman, Miss Mary L. Downey, Miss Isabelle Pillans, Miss Beatrice Marsh, Miss Florence David son and David Monahan. The other portions of the program are to be made up of selections for children dramatic stories of the war, and mon | ologues. Those who will present them are Miss Isabelle Carey, Miss Elsie Clark Miss Margaret Drake, Miss Selma Eckler, Miss Celia Motler. Miss Shirley o Connor, Miss Edith Rosenbluth, Miss Marguerite Smith and Frank Miller Clark. The hour of the recital is o'clock.
 Clayton Ham lton, dramatic critic and playwright, gave the members of 1 the Bridgeport Center of the Drama League of America, a most enjoyable hour yesterday afternoon at The Stratfeld, with his informal ''con- versation,' as he termed it, on What is Wrong with the American Drama" ;" He said it was not because our play wrights are not plentifully equipped with brains, that they had more than the English, but not as much genius as the Irish. There are numbers of people who write good plays every year and MT. Hamilton named such playwrights as Claire Hummer and | Elmer Reizenstein. To his mind these people have talent enough but do not develop it. It is the conditions that are to blame for the situation that exists. And the blame for the sit- uation must be divided between the public, managers, critics and play wrights.
 To MT. Hamilton's mind the public ] ;e oF CTS. The theatre belongs to the pub lie and as some cynical managers say "the public gets as good as it de- serves" The matter with the Ameri- can public is that it is American, we are too young to get the cultured au- 1 diences that attend the theatre ir France and England, We must es- tablish a past for ourselves. Our public is an uncultured public, al | though perhaps the best educated public in the world. Education and culture are not synonymous, however One is born with culture or acquires it through right environment when young. It cannot be bought.
 The drama is the art of authorship it gives a representation of life with l du 0IlucdVOT~lO SlVS 1HtGI pISldIlOu Ol life. The theatre is we'll patronized numbers of people attend, but very small portion of the public cares about the drama. The drama is severely handicapped because it has to compete against the theatre. Tn MT. Hamiltons opinion the war is go- ing to last for at least five years more but he believes the result will be to weld us into a united people.
 The managers are handicapped in putting on the drama by the fact that the public apparently cares little for it. Mr. Hamilton illustrated this point by saying that when Nazimova appeared in Detroit in "Ception Shoals" there was not a handful ot people in the house, while TT moving picture and vaudeville houses were crowded to the doors.
 As regards the critics, he said there really were not any. There are per haps five or six who are trying hard but how we'll they were succeeding was a question. All great art needs a critic to interpret it to the au- diences. He referred to Madame Yvette Guilbert as the greatest artist of any kind now in the world. The playwrights of the present time give too much attention to novelty and to keeping up to date. MT. Hamilton predicted that G. B. Shaw's plays would not last 50 years because they were full of novel ideas.
 Francis Wilson, actor, gave the members of the Contemporary Cluh one of the most enjoyable evenings they have spent in a long time at the meeting held last night with MT. and Mrs. E. N. Sperry at their home, 300 Park Place. Charles G. Waldo in- troduced MT. Wilson by saying that SC very much pleased were the members '~ith MT. Wilson's other lecture be-
 ore the club that they had decided
 waive the rule of repeaters and
 sk him to speak here again.
 MT. Wilson Is a delightful speak
 r. One has but to watch his face
 sht up with his irresistible smile and
 he response is instantaneous. It is