The Washington times., 1923-03-02
SHE SAYS THERE.
is NO SEX
IN ART
Catherine Chisholm Cushing,
Successful Playwright,
Defends Women.
By WILLIAM PARKER,
Cosmopolitan News Service

Los ANGELES, March 2.-It ID
all bosh, this scurrilous insinuation
banded about for a decade that nc
woman playwright can write q
really big dramatic situation.
The allegation is denied by the
clyde Fitch of feminine play.
wrights," Catherine Chisholm Cush.
ing, author and adapter Of nine
stage plays, no one OF which has
been failure.
"Show me the man who made
such a statement about women play
wrights and I will meet him in
public debate" said Mrs. Cushing.
who, when she is at home in New
York, is known as the wife Of the
well-known attorney Her plays
have included "A Widow by Proxy"
with May Irwin; "Gloriana," with
Eleanor Painter and FRITZ Scheff;
The Real Thing" with Henrietta
Burke;. "Marjorlaine. with Peggy
Wood, and "Kittie Mackay, . Polly.
anna" Miss Ananias, and 'Lassie. -
No Sex i'm Art, She Says.
There is no sex in art. be it
drama, painting or literature" de.
ciared Mrs. Gushing emphatically
This talk we hear about women
lacking dramatic sense is ridicu-
lous. What about George Sand,
Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot?
could name numerous other wom-
en- who have had and do possess
equal dramatic power, but why
should /?
II suppose woman should write
only light, frothy plays. Well, per-
81 les
type of stage performance. A man.
ager recently asked me to write the
book for a musical show. Not for
three million dollars said. He
sighed and replied. That lets me
out, then: can't go over two mil
lion.' / cite this only to indicate
my ambition; my forte is drama.
The public recognizes no sex in art,
and woman knows she must de-
liver on the same basis as a man.
Art has no room for sympathy or
class distinction, let alone sex dis
elimination.
just Finished Play.
II have just finished adapting
Nancy STAIR a romantic drama,
the drama and romance being in
about equal proportion, and / know
that the people who go to the
theater will not be concerned in the
slightest whether the play was
written by a man or a woman.
what the American playgoer of
today demands is value. He is too
busy to waste three hours of his
evening and too shrewdly CONNER
cial to waste his money. He wants
something vital. That bugaboo of
playwrights and managers, the tired
business man, has given way to the
poppy business man. The poppy
business man is hungry for enter
tainment, and he likes it well done.
THE poppy business man-and l
include the business woman in this
generic term-would be bored to ex-
tinction by the type of bedroom
farce popular several years ago. /
do not think this is due to any
change in the moral conscience of
the public. Perhaps the writer's
of bedroom plays thought man was
inherently immoral. If so, they
guessed wrong. Bedroom farces are
gone, let us hope forever. An
way through every one of the three
acts. and doze during the big scene
in the bedroom.
1.-THE poppy business man de-
mands not only that he shall be en-
tertained and amused during his
three hours in the theater. but he
also demands that he shall have
some mental food to carry away
with him. He wants something tc
| make him think; a message OIL
theme dealing with a definite prob
lem of life on which he has ponder
ed. 1t is not original to say the
war made Americans a race OF
thinkers, but no one is more fully
aware of this than the playwright
Playwrights must know what bust
] ness people are thinking about, and
write accordingly. 1t follows, then
| playwright should have an acute
business sense along with dramatic
acumen."