Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-10

f1ddling, and boosted the rates accord
ingly.
Years before the cinema came into
being Israel Zangwill said that drama
was IAN art conducted as a business by
bad business men" Years before it
became popular I published q magazine
article called who Killed Cock Robin?"
in which / declared that the theater
was committing suicide. 1t was and
is Run as 1t was and is being run, the
most vindictive prosecutor could not
accuse the films Of anything nearer
murder than administering the coupe
de grace. This is large subject, but
we may pause for one of its major
questions.
Which is:
How can anybody expect to sell any,
thing he has made as hard to buy as
theater tickets?
"Show Business" Dead.
Whoever killed it, the drama Is dead,
or diving. Anyway, the SHOW business"
is dead, and its older brother, long left
in the same crib shows life only here
and there. Only those of us who think
we have our ears close to It's heart
are willing to diagnose the case as one
of suspended animation. The childs
foster parents are hopeless and appar-
emily helpless. While organization and
vigorous measures are indicated, they
remain the only unorganiZed branch of
the theater. Last Winter attended
luncheon given by one manager to dis
ciISs combining the others. We lunched
and discussed, and there the matter
ended.
There have been meetings and news
paper interviews about curbing ticket
ATrf yNF1RNfrhR6
In Is years the number of stages avail
able to professional acting companies IN
the United States and Canada has
shrunk from 1900 to fewer than 400.
AS recently as 1928 q touring organi-
zation could play eight weeks in Texas.
Now it couldn't play eight minutes. A
few years ago there were 80 weeks of
'one-night stands" in New England.
Today there are two. And unless you
want to count the big cities, there isn't
college or university town in America
that maintains a shrine for professional
dramatic art
But meanwhile strange things have
been happening.
The strangest-and yet it has hap
pened before whenever and wherever
like conditions cbtained-has been the
birth and rapid growth and develop
ment Of the amateur movement. There
are more than a thousand so-called
little theaters" in America. Probably
good many more. And these do, not
include all the regularly organized COM
panies that act in schools and churches.
What do they act? Shows? Not bit
of 1t! These people aren't entering into
competition with the movies" Or
with the show business" They aren't
entering into competition with any,
body or anything. They wanted drama,
and. failing to get 1t over the counter,
they went in for home brew.
1t Is easy to minimize or make fun
OF this rebirth, but the ineluctable truth
Is that for centuries theatrical saviors-
and I say this most reverently-have
continued to be born in the manger.
VIII Organize Theater.
Some day somebody will really start
in to Organize the theater" and audi
ences, as Matthew Arnold suggested
ages ago, 50 that the production of
fine plays will stop being a gamble
and become the only sure thing" in
vestment in its field.
Meanwhile new blood is flowing into
the commercial" theater, and there
Is an ever-increasing number Of eyes
that see. In an interview the manager
who presented THE Shanghai Ges-
ture" recently remarked: Next wear
I'm going In for a new kind of play
that the movies can't copy so easily"
Drama IN the commercial" theater
IN New York was never more alive than
just before the financial depression hit
IL staggering but far-from fatal blow.
SO much so that the most optimistic
observers were at loss to explain it.
George Jean Nathan actually credits
the deserters. THE talkies," he says,
IL. - - =
Ii Kidding our audience of their dumber
elements :"
THE future of the theater is thus full
OF promise. AS the 'talkies' improve,
most OF the second-rate element that
SIN figures to degree in the theater
audience will be weaned away from it
and gradually 1t will approach the state
ana condition that dramatists and
critics have been praying for"
The intellectual audience is still a
very limited audience: let's not fool our
selves about that. Limited even If we
include those who want to appear in
tellectual and will pay big prices and
suffer through the Ring of the Nibe-
lungs to do 1t. Limited even If we in
sist as I do q. that dullness and
ooscur1ty do not constitute greatness:
that a play that can't interest the aver
age educated man with a taste for
orama isn't good play; and that
Strictly Dshonorable for example,
has its place in the f1rst-class theater
as surely as perhaps more surely
than THE Master Builder"
The days of flrst-class theaters that
rent naked . for 100000 a year
are nearly over The days Of produc-
tons that cost twice that sum are prob
ably numbered. Presentations that
have to do $4,000 a week to break
even" cannot continue to exist. Why
should they? The clearest distinction
between drama and shows" is the dis
tinction between mental and physical
richness. Many Of us are as tired of
cluttered and ornate stage decoration as
the impresaric, taking his show to
the Coast, who was awakened in the
Garden Of the Gods to look at the
scenery"
Answer Held Obvious.
The answer, I hold, Is pretty obvi-
GUS The old order changeth" The
entire personnel of the theater may
change with it. We may develop
wholly new system Of production or go
back to very old one. But drama Is
not dead, or dying. Its guardians have
been hitting 1t on the head and starving
it, and then complaining because an
infant art hasn't the robustness of an
infant industry-an industry that has
lust swallowed the show business"
But now there has been a blood trans
fusion. There has been liberal dose
of Mr. Nathan's "physic." And the sick
child Is being taken into its own room,