The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-05-04
a. /. ERLAhGER

and this has been followed by many
worthy dramatic productions, all. as
repeat, clean. But the public elected
its preference to see great and elab-
! crate musical comedy pieces on this
stage. and we are in business to please
tho public's natural taste.
us not the world divided into those
who take the cosmic drama seriously
and those who treat it as farce? The
serious minded, the workers and the
fighters. have tho better part, no
doubt; they are after an emotion; they
can feel q thrill, but the testers and
the people who wish their own lives
to be lightened are part of the real
world too. and their wishes are reason
able. They happen at the moment to
be in the large majority.
Farce the Need Of the Hour.
Farce is the need Of the hour, and
am glad to see that our playwrights
have learned to write il. They know
! as we'll as the French ever did how to
stir up the materials; they have shown
themselves good pastry cooks. Where
was there funnier play than Officer
! 666'? And Seven Days made rafting
good farce. In a technical way both
were quite perfect. Indeed, am opti-
mistic about the works of this new
crop of playwrights. They are clever
| and show that they have studied their
art. '39 East is a sample Of the out
put that amused me and will amuse
thousands. 1t Is pure, simple and good
! art.
Yes. some highbrow critics said
| that the scene of It only existed In the
authors imagination. That was alb
surd on its statement and needs no de-
NAL. But when these gentlemen find
fault with it as a play with nothing
new in 1t they annoy me. NewP
What Is new, and what also is old =?
There are a hundred sayings in Ec-
| clesastes, in Menander, in Horace
| and in Shakespeare as apt to-day as
though fresh from the typewriter. In
fact l find the critic gentry printing
things these writer's said before them
The chance OF a play comes back
very quickly to the good old fashion
OF liking 1t or disliking' It, and mod
ern' advanced criticism will not alter
that primitive. that ultimate test I
shouldn't like TO be accused Of inti-
mating that the idea of a play, its
| theme. does not matter. It does in
the highest degree and I am always
hoping that these new writers for the
stage will choose the best subjects.
When they all do, when writer's and
play producers shall stop making mis-
| takes. then the millennium will have
| arrived and critics will be purged of
their errors.
But I strongly believe that all hui
man experience is valuable as stage
material am at a loss to imagine
anything. at any rate for the stage,
that people ought to like or dislike.
There is a constant motive behind
play selection and that motive is ex-
perience Of Life. AS people feel life
SO they will feel most keenly the
drama that is most closely related TO
| life. Many people speak OF a play as
a Fictitious, artificial form: too many
critics consider it as a product of IN
genuity, the business Of which is to
alter or rearrange the things We see
around us This view condemns the
drama to the old Sisypbean round. to
an eternal repetition OF a few stock
situations; this view would kill play
wrightins in its infancy.
ITO hold the mirror up to nature, to
catch the very note OF life. its strange
irregular rhythm, that is the attempt
the strenuous attempt, the force OF
which keeps the stage upon her feet.
And in proportion as in what the stage
offers us We detect life without rear
rangement we feel that We are touch
ing the truth. When We perceive
that 1t has been altered to suit a fad
or fancy we know that we are beina
cheated with a substitute. a compro.
mise, a lifeless convention. But I dc
believe that playwright who has @
right to exercise his art feels this free.
dom. lie gets II as n revelation, he
perceives the truth. which is that all
life, all feeling. all experience, all OBJ.
servation, all vision lie within the
province Of the stage. Technique Is
fine no doubt, and I'm happy to say
that our writers arc realizing this, ant