Evening star., 1936-10-18

| ican cities proud in the possession OF
their own theaters, theaters that,
linked together across the country,
may form the nearest thing TO an
American national theater.
Washington will find civic thea
ter is a good advertisement for a
town, good fun for a town and good
theater.
Being the National Capital. the city
may think that it needs no further
| advertisement, but it may well look
with interest at what the Cleveland
| Playhouse has done for Cleveland's
theater consciousness and artistic
reputation, what the Dallas Little
Theater has given to drama-starved
people in the Southwestern Empire
State, so very. very far from Broad
way; what the Pasadena Community
Playhouse has done for land values
in that coast city. and what lie Petite
Theater in New Orleans has added to
q delightful citys cultural equipment.
The theater has been important in
all civilizations since the earliest In
providing pictures Of life and escapes
from life, a place for protests and a
| place for dreams, but its form and
organization have changed and
changed again through crises, move
ments and fluctuations.
Today in America (and England,
too), where there is no State theater,
as in Germany, Russia, France or
the Scandinavian countries, theater-
minded people are turning more and
more to the non-commercial theater
for what they want.
This theater, so often determindly
called "little theater," has had muSh-
roomlike growth in America since
shortly after the war. but there we're
scattering attempts long before that.
| II there were a very first" local thea
ter, it has been lost in the obscurity
Of historic days that lacked his
torians. But more important than
any first were beginnings here, starts
there, plans in many places, each con-
tributing something.
|
theater turns out, rather surpris-
ingly. to have been Brigham Young
of Mormon fame. The Iatter-day
Saints lived in the wilderness of the
Great Salt Lake for only five years
before they built themselves littlt
theater. They called it the Socia
Hall. and there on January II, 1883
the Deseret Dramatic Association per.
formed the romantic melodrama
Don Caesar de Bazan" In 1876.
they built a larger theater with lc
less than three balconies
From this time on groups sprang uI
here and there across the country
groups of unframed amateurs, play.
ing for fun and relatives; experienced
amateurs. very serious about thei
work; trained workers of semi-profes
sional standing, and finally the non
, commercial players of the best loca
theaters, differing only from profes
sionals in a love for the theater tha
led them to volunteer fine work o
the sort they cared about rathel
than to seek pay for the work tina
they might be able to get on the un
certain commercial stage.
There were the Hull House Player!
at Jane Adams settlement hous
and the Henry Street Settlement
group that grew into the Neighbor
hood Playhouse on Grand street il
New York. There was the Province
town Playhouse that nourished O'Neill
Glaspell and Robert Edmond Jones
And the Washington Square Players
who became the Theater Guild.
The story of the first performanc
of the Washington Square folks i
rather nice, as told by Kenneth Mac
Gowan In his interesting book, Foot
lights Across America" The legen'
goes that Robert Edmond Jones fount
some Greenwich Villagers talking
about a new theater, one afternoon
in the back parlor of the book shol
from which the Boni Bros. were Il
grow into famed publishers. Jone.
said suddenly, why don't you pro
duce a play right now?" And so will
sheets and candles, the founders o.
the Washington Square Players dis
covered themselves acting. for no audi.
ience, but themselves, Lord Dunsany'!
"The Glittering Gate" And from
this grew the theater that gave op'
portunity to Philip Moeller, Heller
westley, Lee Simonson, Lawrence
Langner, Roland Young, Glenr
Hunter, Katherine Cornell, RollC
| D,tI1o ond and
In Europe, similar beginnings wert
going on. The Moscow Art Theatel
emerged from Stanislavsky's group o.
amateur actors, the Society of Art anc
Literature, and Dantchenko's Dramat'
ic School in the Philharmonic So
ciety. Max Reinhardt, in Germany
graduated from q kind Of amateur
cabaret to open tiny theater, Mac
Gowan reports.
In London, Bernard Shaw, un'
known to commercial West End man.
ayers. crashed through In the Inde-
pendent Theater Of London on matt
nee days. The Irish Players begar
as amateurs, and in France, Antoine
had to hire q billiard room back oi
| q cabaret for rehearsals and carry
furniture for props himself, until he
was able to launch the Theater
Libre, and become director Of the
State Theater.
TO-DAY In America, the foul
= theaters mentioned here ar
among the most famous In the
country. Their primary aim is good
theater rather than gain, but thi,
kind of noncommercialism has moi