New Britain herald., 1919-10-22

1 Otherwise it will be put Tn the draw | CT. l suppose my opinion IS shame fully commercial but it is the stand point I believe ln,' declared Wmchcll l Smith. Pennington and New York | plavwright, before a capacity audi 1 enco of New Britajn's society folk at 1 tho opening of tho winter activities 1 of the Now Britain Womans club at Shuttle Meadow club houSo last evc- ming.
 Mrs Traut PrcSidcs.
 l The speaker was introduced by Mrs. Frank l.. Traut president of the Woman's club and spoke informa lily. MT. Smith traced the history and achievements of American play w1~ghting down to the present day. told of tho prejudice that existed for
 a long time against native plays the
 great work of Augustin Daly. and the
 interesting mystery of the play that
 was enormously successful on the
 opening night at one theater and
 turned out a failure, as against the
 play that was roasted by beth audi
 ence and critics on the first night that
 turned out a tremendous success on
 the rest of it's run.
 First Play in 17s6.
 In speaking of the history of the
 drama in this country. MT. Smith said
 that the first play by American
 author was presented in New York in
 1786. It was called Contrast" and
 was written by Royal Tyler, a native
 Of Boston. Harvard graduate and 6
 chief justice in Vermont. For many
 years not only had England but
 America as well felt that a play to be
 a hn h1r iSJ,
 thor. The truth of this is a matter
 of guess work, perhaps but very like
 ly the American product was crude.
 Without doubt, however this country saw the best of English plays of the time here.
 Our condition then was a good deal
 like Australia's which is practically
 without native playwrights but be- cause the theater there makes so much money they are able to pur-
 chase the biggest and best of Eng fish, French and American plays. English Plays Favored During this period of prejudice against the American playwright which was beginning 10 boro the Americans, society people of 1900 be- gan to initiate In dress, manner and speech, the English aristocracy. James Nelson Barker wrote a play and had 1t billed under the name of Thomas Morton and attributed the success of the play 10 the fact that
 he didn't have his American name at tached to 1t. John Howard Payne,
 who wrote his first play at the age of
 15 years. went to London and had 1t
 produced at the DrurN Lane theater,
 where !t ran for two successful years.
 Indian Plays Kissed.
 In 1880 Edwin Forrest a remark
 ably fine actor, was greatly upset re-
 gardtng this prejudice and did all he
 could 70 bring out the development
 of the American playwright. He of
 fered $1,000 and $500 for the best plays and succeeded in securing 15 or so American authors to write plays none of which were a success except an Indian play. This, of course, set every American playwright to writing Indian plays so that the market was flooded with them. At last 1t go so bad that any man coming on the stage as an Indian was hissed.
 So in spite of all his efforts to de velop him Forrest, in the opinion of the speaker, did not improve the con ditions of the American playwright. "Fashton" Was Satire.
 Tn 1S45, however. a, certain An1eri- can wonfan wrote a play called "F'ashion" which was a mild satire on the American lives and customs of the day. She treated these from
 most. life-like point of view. It was, a hard job to get actors to act nat ural in those days, hard to get them to even try, said the speaker. Be- fo1J fNJt might not be a success because 1t did not bear the London trade mark and had been written by a. woman, a
 man was secured to write prologue to apologize for these shortcomings. There was no danger, however, for the piece played to a, crowded audi 1 ence.
 This work according to the speaker l was a most distinct advance in the developmen of naturalness in plays and even greater advance than Sheri- 1 dan's who was considered the first of 1 the naturalists among playwrights l This womans work was presented 20 years before Tom Robinson produced plays with the first really natural kind 1 of acting in London. This marked a new era. We had this idea 20 years | before and didn't know 1t. But no ! attempt was made by us for D num- l Der of years and from the time of the ) production of Fashion" until the re- l gime of Augustine Daly in 1869 l nothing of importance in the Amer l ican play took place, The American 1 play seen here at that time was ono 1 to thirty or forty English ones. DaIy to tho Fore.
 l When Daly secured Il New York l thoater he put the drama. on a higher | plane than 1t had ever been dreamed l of being before. Wallacll's theatcr G1nn AZ ic,l,