The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-03-22
What Is a Proletarian Play?

When he does, she is through with
him. Get yourself a Cod" she tells
him, $50 he can judge you for all
the sins you've done"
If it were not for its preoccupation
with religion, and If it dealt with
workers or peasants less primitive,
Earth" could qualify as a close APP
proach to proletarian drama At least
it has something of the form Of
workers play. Like it, a work
ers' play will be simple, farvent,
passionate. Like it, a workers play
will shun plot, sentimental love
scenes, picayunish reality; it will fly
straight for the big, the essential
things. Like it, a workers play will
go out in the fields, the huts, the
mountains, the haunts and homes and
working places of the poor. And like
it, too, in the workers play there will
be always the people in the back
ground, the community; singing,
yearning, fighting, sharing joys and
sorrows.
And as we move toward this new
kind of drama, many of the older
forms of plays are doomed. The Ib-
sen problem play is doomed. The
Shaw satire is doomed. Already there
seems hardly any room for the pet
tiness of "Craig's Wife" or a thous-
and other teapot tempests in which
little people pound their little sex
troubles against little drawing room
walls. Why all this meanness, this
insignificance, when there are mobs
on the street, and swarms in the sub
way? When there are circuses and
narades and battles and strikes? The
individual doesn't count. He's too
small; too powerless. It's the peo-
pie, the mass, the current of life
that matters. Why, when there is this
organ to play on, this monster or
chestra, why do so many dramatists
prefer tin whistle?
The tin whistle is doomed. Next
we will have romantic plays, sweep
ing epics, glamor and turmoil on the
stage. Maybe they will be such re-
volutionary plays at Schiller's "Rob-
bers." Mike Colds Fiesta" Ito be
produced early in April at the Sind
Street Theatre) has captured in a
comedy vein something of this sweep
and color. Then, when Communism
has triumphed, will come pedantic
plays, like the old miracle plays, mar
row, propagandistic. Who is to say
they will lack art value? 1t will be
a different sort Of value, that's all;
a folk art, the art of the ballads, of
early paintings, of the songs of the
people. And still later there will be
renaissance. A Communist Shakes
peare will arise, an individual, yet-one
of the people. In a secure, blooming
Communist country, he will pour out
symphonies of action on the stage,
drums beating, violins humming, bas-
SEES rumbling, bugles blowing. That
will be Communism's Golden Age.
After that? Well, even Commun-
ism must some day wither up, its
blood grow cold. There will be
satires, problem plays, intellectual
discussions. New Shaws, new lbsens
will thumb their noses and sulk and
sheer. And still later? New revolu-
ton, new romance? The cycle goes
on. Or is it a spiral; round and
round, but higher and higher?
Meanwhile, don't let them kid you.
The drama has its roots in life. When
life is thin and sickly, the drama
grows pale and tired. When life runs
red and juicy, the drama stirs into
dance and song and movement. AL
ready the sick child shows signs of
new health. Already she waves an
arm and skips a step. If you don't
believe it, see "Pinwheel" and
Earth" In another Is or 20 years,
the drama will be roaring all over the
theatre, lusty child of staggering
new society.