davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
In Musical Comedy

Here is a form which every one
recognizes and accepts as some
thing vivid and American and inter
esting. I endeavored to find out
just how it has evolved into what
it liz, but no one seems quite to
know.
Marc Klaw prophesies that must
cal comedy of the future is going
to be musicalized farce, with more
plot and less scenic effect; another
manager deplores the introduction
Of plots and is all for the spec
tacular "revue" Harold Stearns,
on the contrary, thinks that musical
comedy fails because it tries to be
glorifed vaudeville, and wishes a
return TO the old-fashioned oper-
eta. And in the mean time the
form seems to be defying all of
these rules and becoming more and
more a subtle mixture of satire,
comedy and Characterization strung
on a slight plot and supported by
q great deal of music and costume
and elaborate scenery. With all
these elements uniting and reunit-
ing fifty or sixty times a season on
Broadway, each striving to offer
something that will Guido the other
--"something," as Gertrude Stein
would say, ought certainly to be
coming Of it.
And what is coming Of it seems
at any rate to be purely Ameri-
can product, whimsical, gay, light
as thistledown and essentially comic.
Here, if anywhere, we must
look for the Towering of a new
American art, and in scenery, dia-
logue, song, music, dancing and
lighting one sees it flashing forth
this new, shy, brilliant thing we
call the American spirit.
What possibilities it holds, not
only for the human side of art,
where already it vies with the news
papers in its running commentary
on affairs of the moment, but on the
artistic side as we'll! What posi-
billties for the arrangement of
beautiful and expressive movement.
We were all dazzled by the marvel
Gus effects of the Russian ballet,
which was based upon this idea.
Applied to our popular musical
comedies, such an art would come
nearer home, would be less fever
ishly exotic but no less alive, and
no less lacking in variety.
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
Dancing

Our comic spirit is perhaps most
highly developed in our dancing, but
SO popular is dancing at the present
time that the lights Of even the
humblest are not likely to be hidden
under a bushel or to need much de-
scription. Yet I can think of dozens
of men who are doing work which
for humor and subtlety far sur
passes all our highbrow attempts at
pantomine, which RACES once in so
often in all the little art theaters.
There is team now doing small
time on the vaudeville circuit
Emma Haig and Lou Lockett-who
do dance which is the quintessence
of quiet humor and beautiful as
we'll, with its lowering and never
ending rhythm Of steps which melt
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

emotional, as these designs certainly
are. But like all great things they
have their humorous possibilities,
which l have tried to indicate in the
accompanying sketches, especially in
the one with the great round pillar.
inns was designed as the sleepwalk
ing scene in "Macbeth," and in
the original only one figure appears
that Of Lady Macbeth descending
the long steps, candle in hand, and
leaving a little shadow of herself
on every step.
Now, regard this scene as a mu-
steal comedy setting-as a stage for
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02


lining the chorus up on the very
heels of the soloist-the colors in
their costumes cIashing with hers
and their violent movements de-
tracing instead Of adding to the
effect she is making.
Mr.. Craig's wonderful book is
about a thousand years ahead OF
his time, yet it is not too much 10
hope that out of the brilliant NOV
ing mass Of light and gayety and
color which throngs across the
American stage may come the be-
ginnings of what will indeed prove
q new theater and new art.
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

into each other like stream of
motion. Any one who thinks that
buck and wing dancing is easy for
woman to acquire is invited here
and now to try it. 1t is almost the
hardest thing on earth, and, unlike
ballet dancing, cannot be got merely
by routine effort; either it is in you
CT it isn't, and the chances are 80
to l that it isn't One could enume-
rate by the hundred men who have
brought this art to apparent per
lection, as far as technique is con-
cerned. 1t was left for George
Cohan to add to it the style and dis
tinction which turn it into pam
tcmime of very high order.
Women's dancing is less Ameri-
can, as our natural versatility and
the teachings of the exceedingly bad
schools of dancing which flourish all
over the United States have
prompted feminine dancers to use
snatches of everything which they
have ever seen done and much that
they have seen has been imported.
The Castles did a good deal to help
standardize American ballroom dane
ing, and still further step has
been taken by Dorothy Dickson and
Carl Hyson, whose distinguished and
piQuant work strikes again that note
Of youthful sophistication peculiar
to the American girl, of which Miss
Dickson, with her broad shoulders
and small head and appearance of
frailty, is very charming example.
But the dancer who has made the
most important contribution Of all
IS Bessie Mccoy Davis, for to a con-
summate ease and grace of technique
she adds all the whimsical delicacv,
of other dancers plus a very mascu
line feeling for the humorous and
the grotesque, a combination which
fills her work with variety and gives
one the feeling, whenever she leaves
the stage, that she has by no means
exhausted her possibilities. There Is
sweep and brilliancy to her lyric
dancing which is in interesting con-
trast to her comic work, always full
OF strong characterization. I have
IN mind particularly the "Marionette
Dance in which her motions are
made to appear as though controlled
by the ropes which hold her up.
After the loose, fantastic dance has
died down and she becomes just a
bundle of sticks, she is dumped back
INTO the box out Of which she had
come, with her poor wooden face
hanging Imply over the edge, then
that, too, with final flop falls into
the box, the lid is slammed down and
the poor manikin is trundled off
behind the scenes to slow and solemn
music-the effect, so humorous be-
tore, is unexpectedly turned into
drama, and tragedy and comedy for
moment join hands. 1t is this
artistry which makes Miss McCoy's
work unforgettable.
But all these examples of the
comic spirit are scattered, and must,
as a rule, be searched for among
great deal of. chaff. There is,
however, one field where all this
American charm is focused into
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
o. Henry Methods

Another scene that stands out in
my memory was the interior of a
laundry shop on holiday-every de-
tail worked out with the most ador-
able humor and precision. The little
laundress's assistant, with her pug
nose and wisps Of pale hair, has
been cherishing the shirt and cuffs
Of the big laboring man who never
came for them because, as she
thinks, he went to the war (whv
else should one abandon shirt with
cuffsD, and after hours she gets
them out and dreams of the dav
when he may come back for them.
Every week she surreptitiouslv
laundcrs them over, so that they may
be fresh for his arrival, and then.
Of course, he comes, bringing an
atmosphere of the factory with him
which is most realistic, and when he
finds how heartbrolien she is it ends
by his leaving the shirt on the
counter and going to war, after all.
A crude enough plot, as I tell it, but
worked out as simply and with as
much dignity as an O. Henry story.
Then there is Alan Brooks, de-
lightful person who has written a
comedy called dollars and Sense"
in which he takes the leading role,
dividing the stage into three sepa-
rate scenes, and holding the stage
in breathless suspense despite the
difficulty of transferring the inter
est from one section of the scene to
the other. All these acts demand
acting Of higher stamp than any
| have seen on the legitimate stage
for many years, and one reason they
are so convincing is undoubtedly be-
cause the material used is original
and represents the life of Americans
in American settings, no matter how
humble
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

swift climax which brought the
curtain down to q thunder Of ap-
plause, and the action, which alone
was clever enough TO have sustained
the piece, was decorated with a rat
tie of dialogue so quaint and deli
cious and intimate and American
that the audience, in the midst of its
excitement, burst again and again
into peals of delighted laughter.
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

in their field; they are the men who
write our popular songs, based upon
the negro music which is one Of our
great inheritances, although only
the Clover classes" have been clever
enough to discover that fact.
Here again European composers
have been quicker than we to ap.
preciatc American material-Dvorak
and Grieg have both used negro
melodies in their symphonies and
songs.
Again, in the realm Of poetry we
have filled our magazines for years
with the fervid lyrics of ladies who
really have nothing to say; it was
not till that great artist, Nine.
Yvette Guilbert, took the trouble to
present them to us that we knew Of
the splendid ballad poetry that West
ern America has produced, not to
speak of the poems Of the negroes.
Nine. Guilbert took the trouble to
learn our language and present US
with these things in a program
which she labeled as American, else
we would still be ignorant
Let us come down to the matter
Il little more closely and see who the
men and women are that really rep
resent this modern American gift.
In music the first names that oc-
cur to me are Jerome Kern, Baldwin
Sloane and Harry Tierney. Go to
an academy for musical instruction
end ask who these men are. They
will scarcely have been heard of and
are probably looked down upon with
the utmost scorn by the university
! professor who is composing an opera
after the manner Of Debussy. But
stop the man in the street or the
little stenographer on her way to
work and ask them if they have ever
heard Of Jerome Kern Long after
Debussy has been consigned to the
scrapheap the lyrics Of jerome Kern
viii still be singing their way into
the hearts of thousands of people.
A certain song by Harry Terney
which | heard two years ago is still
singing its way through mine, and
| have a particularly bad ear for
music. And discernibe in all music
Of this type is the humorous element
which is distinctively American,
sort of whimsical lightness of touch
which is at once youthful and
sophisticated.
In the realm Of illustration the
field is endless. Pick up a copy Of
"The Metropolitan Magazine" and
look at the strong character sketches
Of Henry Raleigh (any one Of these
heads, which are sketchcd so lightly
into the ensemble called "pcture,"
would hold its own if exhibited in
an art gallery, or look at the
piQuant work of May Wilson Pres
ton, or the charming animal studies
of Charles Livingston Bull, which
are infinitely finer than many i'm
posing daubs in oil which l have
seen decorate the walls of a gallery.
Then there is Tony Sarg and Everett
Shinn, with his fine, nervous
technique, full of that sketchy humor
we have been seeking, and among
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
e Don't Appreciate Our Own Sense of Hum0r


rate attempts at French farce by
actors who have not the A B G of
French psychology are much more
likely to be vulgar than the attempt
Of native comedians to portray for
me our national life, which at least
they have some chance Of knowing
something about?
And to no ono who takes the
trouble to follow these attempts
through the course of year can
there be the slightest doubt as to
what America is going to have in
the way of art.
Perhaps it's a little premature to
say just what form all these young,
vigorous attempts at self-expression
Will finally take. Just at present
our charm lies without any doubt
in our humor-in sense Of the
comic which pervades all the crea-
tive work we do; which pervades our
whole national life, and which has
been pointed out again and again
by foreigners as being our most in
dividual trait. Yet this comic sense
this humorous spirit which ex-
presses itself in thousand ways on
all sides of us--is neither enjoyed
nor appreciated by the people who
talk most about American art and
ideals.
1t is popular art, springing from
the ordinary mass Of the people and
so far supported by them only.
And in this very fact lies it's
strength and Importance.
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
In Magazines

Take, for instance, our maya
zines. Not the art ANIMALS with
their impressive accounts of who
bought the latest Rembrandt, and
what became of the lost Franz Halls
but our popular wecklies, which
everybody reads but no one takes
seriously.
In them you viii find, not few,
but hundreds of examples Of Ameri-
can art-drawings so filled with
humor and pathos and clever tech
niQue and excellent renderings of
American types that you cannot
turn over the pages without smiling
and then laughing and then settling
down to read the stories which are
SO alluringly decorated. Yet who
are these humble artists? You have
never heard Of most of them. They
are just illustrators as the come
dian at Keith's, no matter how ex-
cellent, is just "a vaudeville person"
and that is the end of it.
The same rule holds good in dane
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
As to Settings

One turns in this connection in
stinctively to the work of Gordon
Craig. The solemn grandeur of his
designs for new theater seem at
first glance alien to what we have
been speaking of; it will be many
years before Americans cease to turn
with the embarrassment of school
boys from anything which is deeply
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
In Y or.eIeuiIIe

First, perhaps, Chic Sales, whose
character work is as fine as a deli.
cately wrought etching; or Pat Room
ey, with an Irish american charm tc
which no poor words of mine can
do justice and in the realm Of must
cal comedy Frances White, who
seems to me as finished and exquisite
an artist as any comedian on the
stage to-day, and Raymond Hitch
cock, who strikes perhaps better
than any of them the note of mock
serious philosophy 50 dear to the
American public The names are
legion, and many Of them unknown
to any except theatrical devotees.
In the realm of vaudeville there is
a particularly interesting movement
toward what would be called among
the highbrows characterization in
art IN the form of the little one-act
playlets, which, as we all know,
can be so fearfuly bad when they
are bad, but are, on the other hand,
so remarkably interesting when they
are good.
| remember one which l saw re-
Gently representing a bridal pair on
their first night out on a big ocean
liner. The scene represents their
cabin, and all the noises begin that
one hears at night on a big boat
the terrifying clanking Of chains and
rushing of streams of water, and
mysterious shouts and sudden drafts
OF icy air, etc, causing the nervous
little wife to leap out of bed a
thousand times, till at last they are
so convinced that they have been
struck by a submarine that they
summon a porter, clinging to each
other in terror, only to find that the
boat has not yet left the wharf
This little scene was worked I'D To
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

vast possibilities IT stlll has for
beauty. Flame-colored dancers pour
out Of the doors, making beautiful
and complicated designs as thew
swarm up and down the great fight
Of stairs.
Impractical" you viii say; you
cannot get masses Of people to danca
on steps; the floor must be fat"
Yet in the great revue given at ire
Century Theater a few years ago
Mr.. Dillingham; achieved this very
thing on a flight Of steps that SCARED
up into the roof and out Of sight.
and the dancers he assembled On
these steps did the most elaborate
buck and wing dancing right 70 the
edge of every step, keeping perfect
time with each other.
Only instead Of the soft and mag
nificent lighting which the Gordon
Craig design suggests Mr.. Dilling-
hams lighting was crude, and lis
steps painted Ike a plaid shawl, and
the costumes in red and blue and
yellow diamonds. an effect so hdeous
and nerve racking that it must be
seen to be deprecated. Yet hera
was the same idea in embryo.
The other drawing which T hsvs
reproduced shows the dramatic pos
sibilities of contrasting many peo-
pie and voices with one. I viii de-
scribe it in Mr. Craig's own words.
julius Cesar
Act III. Scene 8
The Forum
"Here we see Marc Antony ad-
dressing half Rome. A hundred thou
sand citizens are seen at the back.
Marc Antony leans toward them AID
away from US. You hear his shrll
high voice. In the front nearest 10
there is silence. There the conspira-
tors wait.
What felt here was the crowd
and the two parties. I had to bring
all these In and divide them Up so
that We should feel the division clear
ly. put the crowd farthest OF
because, although hundred thousand
voices can drown one wfen they are
between you and the speaker, stiM a
hundred thousand voices make an ex-
cellent background to the voice of 4
personality. For instance, never
knew distant thunder, however mighty
It was. to interrupt conversation.
"The man who persuades the crowd
Is in the middle distance.
Those against whom he Is per-
suading are in the foreground.
The silence can be felt."
Now, in place of these dramatic
characters, put into THIS scene. n
your Imagination, q group Of dane
ers. Upon the rock in the middle
distance your solo dancer, with
the painted audience behind her on
the drop curtain, adding to the ef-
feet of space. And in the fore
ground the chorus, dancing with
her, but in shadow, the light con
centrated upon the figure whose
movements they echo. How much
finer than the present system of
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

black and white artists and news
paper cartoonists you will find even
iner work, as, for instance, in
'Vanity Fair" where the words
drawing by Fish" have come to
mean everything that is arch and
sophisticated and witty. Here is
technique which would have inter
ested Aubrey Beardsley, and it has
its masculine counterpart in car
toonist named "Gropper," whose
work on The New York Tribune
seems to me to place him in the fore
most rank of American humorists.
The comic spirit among writer's is
still more reflective Of American life
as for instance Stephen Leacock' 3
delicious satire called "Tranquil
Hours With the Idle Rich" which is
so good as to be really an important
contribution to the America Of the
future as we'll as of the present
and, second, Grenville Pelham Wode-
house, who has always caught par
excellence the American spirit, al
belt an Englishman-and then there
is Clarence Day and win Irwin, not
to speak Of O. Henry, the finest of
them all.
"But who," you will say, thinking
Of the last stupid bill you saw at
Keith's, "are these vaudeville artists
for whom you claim so much?"
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
Our Art

Where is it? you viii ask. Some
ole must have discovered this treas
ure or it could not live. You are
right, dearie, some one has. 1t ex-
lists in the popular magazines, on
the vaudeville stage in the movies;
in all those places frequented by the
millions of people whom we refer
to as the Clover classes"
Take, for instance, vaudeville. I
spend whole evenings wrangling
with my intellectual friends as to
why l want to go poking off to
Keith's TO see an unheard of person
named Chic Sales do limitations Of
small town life in the West when
they want to go to see q French
adaptation of an English farce ar
ranged for American audiences and
called "Why Stella Stayed in Bed"
"Why," say my friends, regarding
gloomily my season ticket to the
Palace, "do you pretend to affect
what is vulgar?"
AS my friends have never been to
Keith's, what Is the use of telling
them that ! really feel that second
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

something really constructive, and
that field is musical comedy.
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
From Il Drascing by Gordon Craig

ing-that art so patronized in
America-yet in our patronage how
little discrimination we show. We
rush to see every new fad which
claims to hail from Russia or is
something Oriental, because the
Russian ballet is the fashion and
Oriental dancers are considered in
tercsting, no matter how far from
truth and art they may stray; yet
right under our noses in every
popular "show" of the day there
tlourishes form of dancing which
is ours-which Europe has already
recognized and appreciated, but
which we still look down upon as
vulgar refer not only to our clog
and buck and wing dancers, whose
technique is unrivaled, but still
more to the eccentric and character
dancing which lends itself so we'll
to the syncopated American music
which we have evolved.
Fn Music
Here again. in the case Of music,
we mistake our real gifts for Dor
rowed ones. The feebleness of our
attempts to create an American
grand opera have been attributed to
the fact that America has no orig
lnal composers. America is full
Of composers who are unequaled
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

What about it, What have we
got to offer foreigners which is vi
tally ours and different from any
thing they have got? The worm
turns at this everlasting talk about
our initiative art, our borrowed
drama. And the worst Of these ac-
cusations is that they are true, as
tour of our art galleries and our
so-called "hiSh-class" theaters proves
only too well. They are filled with
feeble mutations of European art
and still feebler adaptations Of
French and English farce. These
things are patronizcd and encour-
aged year after year by we'll dressed
and undoubtedly we'll bred Ameri-
cans, who are ycasning after culture
and think they are getting it. And
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02
BY Winifred Ward

"HE other day Henry and l
were invited to attend a pri-
a vate exhibition of Persian
watercolors. We went. only
to discover, as usual, that the water
colors were there not because they
were good, but because they were
Persian.
Indeed, they were so bad that we
should have shot out at once had we
not been detained by our exubcrant
hostess. who had captured for this
occasion a Frenchman, who hap
pened to be visiting this country on
diplomatic mission. lntroductions
ensued, and our American hostess
cemented our friendship as follows:
"Ah, monsieur said she, in excel
lent French, at is delightful to have
your judgment on our little exhibi-
ton. Charming, is it not?-so sub
tie, al this work-so Eastern In
the arts, where are we poor Ameri-
cans? We must seem so crude to
you, with our lack of taste. know
how vulgar We are as a nation-how
little we have to offer that compares
with this" and she waved her arm
toward the mediocre watercolors.
The Frenchman listened in cour-
teOuS silence
Henry, did you agree with that
woman?" said /, Indignantly, as we
rode homeward
What woman?" said Henry, I'M
folding the latest edition of "The
Stock Brokers' Friend"
The one who thinks her country
ought TO be apologized for. Don't
you think that we are all right?'
Sure" said Henry, "everything
that's American is all right and nc
retired behind the paper. Henry is q
true American.
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

yet they are ignoring the only thing
America has to give them-a virile,
vital, newborn art which is our
own
New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-02

TIME other day Henry and l
were invited to attend pri-
a vate exhibition of Persian