New-York tribune., 1919-10-26
Writer by Trade
Lauds O'Higgggin ggin
Just as Writer
By Rebecca Drucker

asserting Harvey O'Higgins. l went
TO interview Mr.. O'Higgins as the au-
thor of "On the Hiring Line" the new
comedy which has been so cordially re-
ceived at the Criterion Theater. Reach
ing for that section of his personality
marked Successful Playwright" l
found that l had also pulled up the
one marked brilliant Journalist" and
Writer of Distinguished Fiction" to-
gether with several sub b-divisions per-
tanning to Mr.. O'Higgins as psychol-
ogist, Mr. O'Higgins engaged in rclat-
ing art to life, and sundry other
strands. Clearly, unraveling the tangle
would take too much of the scant hour.
1t would be better to accept him as a
composite and let it go at that.
The impression is, in the manner of
er that concise definite information
about Mr.. O'Higgins's past and present
nor that clear black-and- por-
trait that was in my orders. l car
ried away an impression of some one
tall and slim, graying nicely but keep
ing keen about the eyes, of somethin
indetinably prestly in the poise of his
and of the faintest trace of an Irisl
slur in his speech. 1t is probable tina
people in all sorts of circumstances un-
solicited cOntide in him all sorts o.
strange things because of that vague
confessional and absolving manner of
his. These are doubtless docketed away
IN his mind. and evolve as tales and
plavs.
That flair for the subtle and psyche
logical that O'Higgins expresses in
his stories he draws on very lightly
indeed in con the Hiring Line" The
comedy straddles very broadly the wide
and public humors of the American
servant problem. Nevertheless he has
INDUCED his sense of realism in da-
logue that, by its tang and casualness,
comes closer to everyday speech than
anything now on the stage.
1t Is not so simple putting real
talk on the stage. 1t is as hard as it
is to put it into book, and any writer
will tell you how hard that is" said
Mr. O'Higgns. ut is not so hard if
YOU are writing comedy. Somehow
the faithful reproduction of anything
with which an audience is familiar is
something deeply humorous to them. 1t
Is when You try to set an emotional
situation before an audience that you
realize by what psychology the stages
tradition OF eloquence is justified. If
you were to try to reproduce an emo
gestures, tones and speech into which
ordinary people relapse in crisis,
their inarticulateness, their general
inadequacy to express themselves in
great emotion, it would need great art
to save it from seeming ridiculous on
the stage.
The theater is the great place to
study the unguarded instincts of
people. / have come upon so much thai
nd In of
observations in the theater that have
been stirred to write six articles that
am calling The Secret Springs viii.
are soon to be published in The Co.'S
mopolitan Magazine.' People in the
theater IN the release of their plav in
stincts, return to more primitive
state of consciousness. That is why you
will find them putting right and wrong
on quite different sides of the social
line. What sub-conscioous justihcatons
are operating in people to make them
give sympathy to the thief and the
prostitute in the theater that they
withhold in real life? The things that
society has taught us do not hold in
our judgments of these people of the
imagination. That is because we have
identified ourselves with them and our
judgments of ourselves are still fal
less Intellectual and reasoned than oul
may murder and lie and steal and We,
not forfeit the passionate partisan.
ship of the audience And he may bs
compounded of all the social virtue,
and yet remain deeply their antagonist
1T depends with whom the audience
identifies itself. That is what make.
writing plays so different from any
other form of art-that you must gt
by chart which is submerged, II
" F ~ ho
You strike a current from which gushel
human response almost by accide Mt
We had one such moment in 'Th,
Dummy when the mother, the crook
faces her daughter, who does not know
her. II needed no lines to make thi
INTO drama. The simple act of bring
ing together mother who yearnes
toward daughter who did not know
ner established an electric currerr
that needed not line TO bind it, 3,
ar nnerrng instinct each person di
Nin7d what was going on in that WON
an mind. That moment ilumined al
tna1 vent before and followed after.
mere are springs that lie NOR
Heepiy buried than this. 1t has alway:
Deen nay favorite theory that Hamle
had inevitably 20 die because he wa
as lnheXioly committed 20 an atone
Ileht as nc was committed to the mur
- N%S9 " Aue duQlPHCe. Il
aeath Is no accident Of poisone,
sword TO them. They have identifie,
themselves with him and his most OBJ
secure promptings to expiation ar
tneifs' The exaltation of Hamlet a
OF ali great tragedies, lies in this vi
e.fious exI lation. The purQing nowe
ot an me emotional expres sions Of I'M
stage ies IN THIS exercise of the irnari
h&t'on by which an auditor who ha
ot.en no capacity for any nobjlitv ro
aaolNtafes himself in his own estear
who has '''''e on
As Tor our sub-conscious attitudo
'o~ard sex think our plays reveal u
as we'll AS anything else. II is s,o
"'Ncant, ! think, that no great gorceT
ass no strongly sexod person has eve
oeen q really popular favorite here
~ our greatest favorites, like Maud
ADAMS. Mary Pickford or Marvuerit
Siars, have been childlike, almost sex
iess. creatures. Ny opinion is tha
americans fear sex-they have not tn
s9otieiy or the philosophy TO COPE viii
y ard they fear to be troubled bv il
think american men fear wonc,
more than any mon on earth. That /;
WY me national ideal is what n e.
mat - wny our bedroom farce. clox
~ It skates 70 the danger point. 1
always lnrocrops"
After deyelopment In the chem,xty-
of the DARK room tho various pcrsonali
i.e@ u Mr. O'Higgins the journals,