The Washington times., 1931-10-20
True to Type
RADICAL SPIRIT A
GOOD THING IN
THE THEATER
By GILBERT SELDES

announced that Greenwich Village and all it stood for
was Dead but that it had been of the slightest
Importance when it alive. knew from occasional
visits that fresh and tall apartment houses stood where
broken down roomng houses had welcomed genius
years ago. that rents were hgh that of the great
ones had departed to suburban homes, domestic hap
pness the contrary and fat saaries and the speak
eases were not any better than those uptown. Even
the jail which had been a landmark, although not a
home, for rowing spirits, had been rebuilt. was
little inclined to agree with the injurious writer After
ALL what had Greenwich Village-including its coun-
terparts in other ctes-accomplished?
The Provincetown
Today I've been reading account of what is prob
ably its greatest achievement, biography called The
Provncetown, dealing with the little theater of that
name which for fifteen years lived more exctngly
than any other theater of time Ut is, incidentally
a good book, written critically that its sentiment
and it's enthusiasm are acceptable because they are
matched by frankly unfavorable comment and sup
ported by good-humored cynicism.) Probably no
large city in the United States has failed to feel its in
fluence- only because in every large city some plays
of Eugene ONeills have been produced, by profess
sionals amateurs.
Not a Monastery
ONeiL, am told, lives Park Avenue now: he has
home in France; the printed versions of his plays
make money and vast, overnteectualized production
like Strange nterlude" is hppodromed the con-
the Provncetown; they not dedicated to starva
ton and obscurty only to producing the kind of plays
they wanted to produce. They often put bad plays
most producers do; in while in the later
stages, they produced plays which they hoped would
bring them money For. the most part they deserved
their financial successes surely the commercial
producers did.
O'Nells is not the only great name connected with
the Provincetown Although they were not beginners,
Walter Huston of the movies, Kenneth Mcgowan of
Broadway and Robert Edmond Jones, who creates the
great scenic glores of stage, all did significant
work with the tiny downtown theater and received
from it experience and encouragement which have
been effective in their One Pulitzer prize went
to the Provincetown the award to Paul Green for 1n
Abrahams Bosom"-now justified by his current play
"The House of Connolly" And there "The En-
peror" which started Gpin and Robson
A Play Called "him'
have seen dreary plays plays wfully obscure plays
not worth moments thought at the Provincetown
and also them do play which simply could not
be done by any other group at any other place, and
which worth whole not only of CONNER
cal productions but of arty the play called him.
by E. E. Cummings. Since I became involved in it's
fate this play arriving the end of the theaters
existence, strikes a important production
even than the ONeill successes The critics of the
daily papers went completely mad, called ugly names
eered and Catcalled in print. wrote the preface to
pamphlet of these opinions (and the high praise of
pamphlet to John Anderson, then and the critic
of the New York Evening Journal, whom had
at the time whom believed to be about co. since
he wrote with divine authority and who dstin-
guished from his felowcritics by single circum-
stance-ike them he hated the play, but unlike them
he understood it.
A Timid Theater
There is fight left in the theater and by coinc-
dence theaters dark sparsey attended and rarely
entertaining. is better to have theater which pro-
duces bad plays under the impression that they good
than to have theater which produces bad plays knowing
they bad, to make money The present theater is
shot through with insncerity It is half fhearted If
you want to Greenwich Village of failure because
it did not regenerate the American theater, you may
But you ought to consider the awful lump this small
group was called on to leaven.
Ten Years to Loaf
George Derrick writes to inquire what has become of
my scheme of knocking off work between the ages of
twenty and thirty, during which everybody will be
financed by the profits made at congena labor from the
of and after thirty happy to report that
seems on the high road to The only difficulty