New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-03-30
By Haywood Broun

by T1eyWOOO DrOun
Our enthusiasm for a romantic re-
naissance in the theatre has cooled per-
ceptibly since seeing Susan Glaspells
"Bernice" at the Provincetown Theatre
last week. This play convinced US anew
That the things which can happen to
people arc ever so much more thrilling
than the things which can't happen to
them. There is no finer adventure in
the world, or in the theatre, than the
search for truth, and no triumph so
complete as it's discovery.
We never did throw our hat up in
the air about theatrical romance be-
cause it was moro interesting than the
atrical realism, but merely because it
was easier. The plague of our play
houses has never been true plays, but
plays which pretended, or even tried, to
be true and never got there. 1t is not
to be denied that the romantic play
which frankly admits its divorce from
life is better entertainment than the
half true play. At that, the percentage
which we have set is too high Most of
the plays which purport to mirror life
are no better than ree-sixteenths
true. Moreover, what truth they possess
has been in eXternals. We have had
real dairy restaurants, real trees, real
grass, real hotel Hobbies, and real tele-
phone switchboards, but precious few
real persons.
Now, reality is a bad jumping off
place for fantasy. Personally, we are
perfectly willing to have characters in
play go out to kill dragons or find
grails or dispel entertainments, but not
amid the buckwheat cakes. The very
reality of some of our stage settings
has only served to throw into contrast
the utter absurdity Of the happenings
which the playwrights have presented
to us as life. Miss Glaspell's three-act
play seems to US notable among the
dramas of the season for the seemingly
accurate portrayal Of the things which
go on in peoples minds. The play is
by no means technically perfect. In
order to be truthful the author cannot
invariably avoid the sin of being
patiently painstaking. Life is a good
dramatist, but usually lcisurely one.
There are points, then, where his col
laboration has not been altogether
helpful to Miss Glaspcll.
But beyond all this is the enormous
stir which comes to the spectator when
a character says or does something
which carries with it surprise instantly
followed by conviction. These are the
rich moments of drama, and in them
the playwright reaps a double reward.
First he gains that excited thrill which
comes when the unexpected happens.
This thrill belongs equally to the ro-
mantle playwright But in the next
moment the rcalist scores again If the
spectator says to himself, mo, didn't
expect that, but after all ! sec now
that what that woman did is exactly
what she would do" The playwright
is in a strong strategic position if she
can convince her audience again and
again that she knows and understands
her characters a little better than they
do. Particularly if at the end of the
play audience and author come out
exactly even in their understanding.
1t would be most unfair to Miss
Glaspell to take her carefully mould
ed plot and reduce it into two para
graph skeleton, with the bland remark,
"The story of the play is as follows"
1t would be better to say that the play
is kin to "Trifes," in that the acts of
a dead woman, and her reasons for
those acts, are gradually revealed to
the audience through the recreation
of the woman by the combined mcm-
cries of her friends. No play which
we can remember has been more vivid
in creating the atmosphere of the llv-
ing presence of some one who has died
We do not mean a living presence IL
the Peter Grimm sense. There are nc
dim-lit restrictions, no voice from
behind the arras, no table rapplngs
The woman is made to live because
she has given something of herself te
each of her friends. Not one. of them
knows her thoroughly, but by the grad
ual synthesis Of the various memories
the true woman is re-created. The
play is intensely dramatic, since the
most important facts about the dead
woman are brought out in scenes oil
conflict between the living characters
1t is perhaps we'll to note that "Bcr-
nice" bears eloquent testimony that {