The daily worker., 1927-04-09


3.-By no means do we wish q gloomy theatre,
a solemn theatre, or a morbid theatre or a high
falutin theatre. What we wish is a theatre where
the typicay bourgeois subject of individual mainly
sexual, Glove" sufferings conflicts and problems is
relegated to the rear, if not entirely abandoned,
while the wider aspects of life-socal, economic,
political, cultural-includng the emotions of men
and women not sugaI-cOated but real and convinc-
ing in their truth--occupy the front We do not
wish theatre that breaches. We detest moralzing
pieces. But similarly detest empty, senseless
pieces, anecdotes in three acts with lingerie and
interior decoration. We wish to see things that
full of significance strong, VITAL vibrant, stirring,
not only showing the tragic face of life but also
ready to laugh, to mock, to ridicule, to constrIe
a grotesque image, to grip the soul with sun-lit
vision. We wish theatre that lives full-chested
life instead of talking polite words in drawing
room or in a country club We wish to see both
suffering and joy, injustice and struggle, sweeping
passions and life-givng ideas, wisdom and mirth,
blackness and rainbow-spanned horizons, childish
ness and manhood, love and sacrifice, vctors and
vanquished-all this not in the abstract but in
carnated in people, appearing in the actions Of lv
ing and
At is obvious that a theatre of this kind will
depart in its methods from the purely speaking"
theatre with painted scenery 1t will certainly be
construct;viss theatre employing all elements that
go into the formation of theatrical art: drama,
music, plastic notion sculpture, painting, lighting.
While it is impossible and hardly desirable to lay
down rule as TO what KIND OF production we would
like to see in the workers theatre, it is safe to
say, negatively, that such theatre will not initiate
life mimic photograph life that it will not
fine itself to pretty sterites cut and dried po-
lite mannerisms-- positively, that it will be
ative theatre constructing for each piece its own
forms of expression searching for new MEANS ever
gropng never resting OH it's laurels (the pre- Re-
Tolntionary Moscow Art Theatre of this kind,
though serving the needs of the Russian bourgeois
intelligentza under Tzardom).
The workers theatre must be embodiment of
the modern forms of production enlivened and in
vgorated by fresh stOrm-swept material taken from
the very heart of the present cataclysmic 1t
needs not much proving that a theatre showing
the sky-scraper and the blast furnace, the labora
tory and the picket line, the naval monster and
the grain elevator, the plantation Negro and the
IKentuckian mountaineer, the railroad strike and
the war of lethal gasses, will not be able to confine
itself to the methods of production of "The Great
Gatsby," "Rride of the Lamb" Craig's Wife,"
even "Desire Under the Elms" or "The Great God
Brown" It must, however, be made a conscious
task to work collectively for forms and new
methods of presentation.
5.-This brings up the question of a staff. We
picture the workers theatre consisting of a
terie OF actors painters, sculptors, dancers, play
wrights, musicians, lighting masters all having
contact with the masses, at least sympathetic to
labors struggle, some Of them haing from the
ranks of labor all of them working in cooperation
for fhe creation of significant beauty, all animated
with the striving for the higher art which is of
necessity more human and true than the