Evening star., 1936-11-29

Robinson, who worked in a post ONCE
in his early years and always wore
the look of man who could count
stamps rapidly There is Edgar Lee
Masters, a lawyer who is more legal
than lyric in appearance. Or the
poet laureate Of Great Britain, famed
for writing about a man with a hoe,
famed for resembling one.
Carl Sandburg, generally considered
one of the fire-eating type of mime
singers, is said to affect the dactyllic
haircut (albeit he writes in no tight
verse form, but, at least in his pho
tographs, it gives him the appearance
Of a Chatauqua orator rather than a
steaming troubadour. Then we come
to the example Of the most energetic
and fertile of our modern poetic
dramatists. who also happens to be
the subject of this yarn. His name
is Maxwell Anderson. And to the
naked eye (the only kind IN popular
use today, he looks exactly like a
man once met in the locker room of
a golf club in Terre Haute. Heavy
set, masculine, amiable, sharp witted.
MR.. ANDERSON was in town last
N week. You may have noticed
some casual mention in the public
prints of play entitled The Wing
less Victory" in which Katharine
Cornell was the star. 1t seemed the
logical thing to call on him, to beg
the answers to few ill-chosen ques-
tions. A major dramatist should not
sit around his hotel without an in
terviewer to keep him company. In
quiry at the theater brought the
answer. Mr. Anderson does not give
interviews" That, of course, made
the cheese more tempting. We tele-
phoned him one afternoon and asked
if it would be all right to come up
around S, in order not to interview
him.
Certainly" he said, just like that;
most friendly about it. (This acquits
him of any kinship with ]. P. Nor
gan. who also does not give inter-
views. He made his point one time
down here by having a couple of pri-
vate detectives, feet tall, chase us
out Of the Carlton Hotel)
At 5 o'clock the door of the Ander-
son Hotel suite opened Maybe it
was $50. This watch has not been
right since, while being carried by
grandfather, it was more or less re-
sponsible for Pickett's CHARGE. A
man dressed in a brown suit and a
brown sweater was standing there.
He had dark hair and q dark mus
tache. He smiled pleasantly.
Mr.. Anderson" I said, thinking
Of the fellow in Terre Haute.
Yes" he said. We shook hands
and went into the front room. He lit
cigarette and began to explain his
prejudice against that peculiar seance
known as the newspaper interview.
1t is not permitted to quote, for he
will not talk for quotation, but the
gist of the argument was that half
the people do not remember correctly
the statements of interviews, and even
if they do, what good comes Of it?
Customarily reporters ask at least half
dozen irrelevant or facetious QueS-
tions, and if any of them get an an
swer the fellow who does the talking
lives to regret it, all in the same week.
Then when mans opinions on race
riots, spinach, or Poe are quoted, they
come back to plague him. Ten years
later some one can disinter the quotes
from the newspaper files and say,
How does it happen you say this or
that now, when formerly you said
such and SOP" In the meantime the
man may have been hit by brickbat
in a race riot, choked on spinach or
been driven nuts from reading THE
Raven" any one Of which would en-
title him to slight change of view
point, but his critics will howl him
down as man Of no substance. a
wishy-washy fellow who has no idea
what he thinks.
THIS was good and interesting talk
to me. but the reasons for q mans
silences are not half so exciting as
the disturbances which make him
write plays or get up on a platform
and harangue whoever will listen.
We shifted to that ground and Mr..
Anderson must not be blamed for all
that Is hereby cleaned from 1t.
Anderson was o newspaper man,
writing poetry on the side, before he
wrote his first play. He turned to the
theater at "a. Selling poetry to maga-
zines, or even the idea Of publishing
books Of 1t, did not satisfy him. 1t
Is not easy to surmise whether he
started out with the completely
formed conviction that the modern
theater needed poetic drama. He ap-
pears absolutely committed to the
theory today, but this years creeds,
backed by all logic, are often enough
last years hunches-which worked
out right.
At any rate he Is writing his plays
largely IN blank verse, with q resolu-
ton suggesting that he believes others
will follow him, that there will be .
renaissance Of the stan8a and the
canto, or the more loosely woven
poetic forms, IN modern drama. We
made talk Of the notion that ali really