The New York herald., 1921-02-20
Archer, Critic,
Passes Judgment
On His Own Play
Hopes .The Green Goddess Is
Good, but Says the Public
Must Decide.


Archer, Scottish. mot English dra-
matte critic. the other day. Il did venture
/ an opinion that l could not write a
play. What | meant was that in my
youth / had written one or two short
plays without giving satisfaction to my
I self or any one else. Suddenly the idea
| OF The Green Goddess flashed across
my mind and I saw also In my mind
the exponent of the chief character In
! the late II. B. Irving. Few dramatic
/ critics, in England at any rate, have
written successful plays. Just as an art
critic seldom paints good picture.
\ Maybe | have broken the rule. hope
I so The decision lies with the public.
Have l while writing this play learned
anything about technique which / didn't
know before? ] don't think SO. ] have
never acknowledged any rigid rules of
drama. except one rule laid down. !
think. by Dumas-that every sort of play
is good except the tedious sort.
'Of course the specific characteristic
of the drama is the result of its appeal
to the throng, not to the individual. The
chief figures of a novel are not always
required to know their own minds. but
belief in free will is always favorable
to the drama. The technique OF the
drama is more difficult TO grasp than the
technique OF prose-fction. The novelist
need consider his readers only; the dra-
matist must consider the actors, the
theatre and the audience.
~ fhip1r n we'll IN make everything
transparently clear in the early scenes
of a play. You may remember that in
l.Adrienne Lecouvreur' Scribe kept his
heroine out of the opening act in which
all the other characters appear. to lay
the foundation of the plot, and reserved
her appearance to arouse interest in the
second act. Well. 'Adrienne Lccouvreur'
is really play in five scenes-scarcely
acts-and l don't think this example
should be followed at least not exactly,
as a rule. 1t is, however. sometimes a
good plan to delay the entrance Of your
star until the closing moments of the
first act. The star might object? Well.
there are certainly cases in which he Cor
she), IL intelligent, would see the advan-
tage of ii.
DO l agree with Planche, who says
that you must tell the audience what
you are doing, when you are going {,
do It. then you must tell them thai you
arc doing 1t, and after that you Will tell
them that you have done 1t, and then
confound them-perhaps they will under
stand you? No. 1 don't think modern
audiences are as dense as he would
make out. But. as Dumas says. the first
act must be clear. the last act short. and
all the acts interesting
while writing my play | had TO re-
member. as all dramatists must keep IN
mind, that my audience has only one
| pair of eyes apiece. and one pair OF
4 ears, and that the stage is not three
ring circus. The drama ought &c re-
/ veal the human will in action, and
\ though the central figure in the play
ought to know what he wants, and strike
for it with incessant determination, vel
there are exceptions to this rule--the
play OF Hamlet, for instance. which has
had at times a most successful career.
Il have certainly tried in this present
play to carry on the interest from act
/ to act, to arouse curiosity-not exactly
or merely 10 make situations. Only al
the end of one of my acts will you find
what may be called a 'picture-poste'
situau uon.'
But, as / have said. rules-dramatic
rules--can be, and are, broken: but you
must know when and where to breai
them. A good instance of this Is seer
4 in The Bad man. where the play j.
| practically over at the end of tue sec
ond act, but is successfully renewed in
the third.
II try, also, never TO leayc my auli.
ence vaguely aware that they have be"r
deprived OF something to which they arc
entitled. | agree with Sarcey in holding
that an audience ought no to be baked
OF what II may justly consider. a scene
\ a faire.
Some authors say they arc forced 10
content themselves with being the obedi-
4 ent, humble servant or their stage d.
4 rector. | disagree with them. At all
events i'm this particular instance / did
not find this to be the case. l have
heard II said. too, that actors neither
make nor mar dramatic literature that
the plays of the period shape the actors,
moding them to higher and lower uses.
I don't believe II. H. 3. Irving. In the
! first instance. and George Arliss, in the
second place, undoubtedly helped to
| shape my play.
And finally, what is coming in the
4 dramatic world2 We've had In our
time the cup and saucer drama, the
growth Of farce. the decadence OF bur-
! lesque and opera bouffe, and now We are
in the whirl Of musical comedy. bed
4 room and Turkish bath plays. What
/
4 audience What we certainly need now
I is individual genius, some individual
i genius at all events. IN musical plays
/ We have no Offenbach We have no sui
\ Ivan. The public, now plunged into the
maze OF musical comedy, has a remark
i ably short memory. and maybe when Il
I has quite forgotten Offenbach, Lecocq.
/ Won Suppe and the rest OF that brilliant
band some genius will arise who viii.
though not quite IN the same way. rival
/! their masterpieces OF comic opera.
Taken as whole. in my opinion
things dramatic arc IN much better
condition than they were twenty years
| ago and vastly better than they were
thirty years ago. And as for the intelli-
geuce OF audiences-well. don't think
YOU would come across IN these days
any ono displaying such charming igho-
rance as the Southern Colonel who, on
leaving the theatre after having seen
Salvini in 'Othello.' remarked
EFT was a good show--a mighty good
show--and don't sec but the coon did