1. Ft. Worth - Dramatic Instinct and its Fulfillment - Them (Pinsk Min (mostly about Texas to me, indicating range of their experience in contrast))

Melrose, N. J.

New Braunfels

Houston

Dallas - Curio

Meaning? Search me.

Life not writing.

Cited 1,2,3 - I do know.

2. Dallas - Thomas Mann. 2 years - war over. Rich.

Mrs. M.

Joseph - Jewish (movies not want. cited Potiphar's wife refusal.

"Fool," says Mrs.

"You are my rock, and my food, and salvation" Yes. Tolstoy was for me.

About wives of writers.

Laugh. Plaintiveness.

About destiny. Use of self.

Led to

ly

3. D. H. Lawrence - who did passionate First meeting. Dance. Spaghetti Trip through south of France

Toulon, the story -

Years later - Frieda's word.

4. Recordings led to Schoenberg - Last word in Wagner. Vienna. Twelve to tone music. Dismay. Perversity of music vs. words. Brahms 1st. Chekhov's Sea Gull.

Bernhardt - Phaedra. And Sothern

Marlowe - false concept.

B. Shaw and Lyn Fontanne.

5. Little Theatre and fun. No new blood, all older now. New? O die? Theatre Guild, the same. Director's genius for making you do and like it - for yourself.

Led to Hinsdell and

6. Bill McCraw - Negro and murder Boy. Stiff laced women. The job. 18. Fixin trouble. no. $10. Sun. school. Robbery. Old charges 560 yrs.

Talk On art. Dramatic. Ain't sissies. too Don't talk noble when they goin much. to die. (Present 'em up right)

Drink and get well-healed woman.

Cont'd McCraw.

Pistol by side. etc.

7. Decorations' Show. T ommaso house. Show place. Named after plays. Panelling?

"1/2 walnut and 1/2 Sheraton"

8. Hollywood

Boley

Feeling about him.

Salaries, too high. No.

Joan and heart story. We

scoffed. (Enough for child

Flu, me. Franchot, his

death.

B. Davis. Ingenue. Stardom. Of Human Bondage. Tale. And letter later.

this to:

Maugham - I almost meet Maugham.

(C, Boothe, etc.)

2X

Dietrich - and technique of survival. "She hates him."

"They had a fight."

9. Theatre Guild and Conference. Maoulian. Trauma. etc. Boston. etc.

10. Hopkins and Borned in Texas.

THE PLAN FOR EACH WEEK:

Mon. Wed. Fri. - Me, 30 mins.
You, 20 mins.

Tues. and Thurs. - <u>Yours</u>.

2. Notebooks, pencils, and your wits always.

3. Now: Write <u>now</u>.

1. Name: Write your name (or an English name)

2. Where was your home now?

3. Where is your home now? Not Waco - unless it is

4. What branch of the drama are you most interested in?

5. If the drama is not your main interest, what is?

6. Why have you enrolled in this course?

7. I will read a list of great playwrights. What ones are you most familiar with? (Read list twice)

Shakespeare, Franz Werfel, Pirandello, Shaw, Chekhov, Sean O'Casey, Ibsen, Eugene O'Neill, Strindberg, Paul Green,

8. Any of the Greek dramatists.

9.

Hand this in now.

4. Tomorrow:

Recover from your childhood, an incident.

Tell it - 2 minutes. Or write it, and read it.

For example:

(It may be pointless, humorous, tragic, drab, an impression only -- but true. It happened to you.)

Me. All senses relating. Describe me. The place. Flag candy. horse in window, etc. Meaning? I didn't know, till now.

-0-

# The Tributary Theatre

## A CREDO FOR THE TRIBUTARY THEATRE

*Because of its timeliness and eloquence, THEATRE ARTS publishes, in condensed form, this statement of faith delivered by Lynn Riggs in an address to the San Diego Community Theatre at the Globe Theatre early last year.*
*Editor's Note.*

CASUAL as the personal reasons may be which bring the workers in a little theatre together, one dare not be casual about theatre itself. No one should touch any aspect of the theatre without joy, honest-to-God delight. For joy is the very stuff of the creative impulse, and this impulse must be given a chance if the worker and the audience which comes to see his work are to be rewarded.

Certainly no drama group has the right to ask anyone to sit through a production without being in some way changed; not necessarily made over, converted in a moment to something new and strange and unrecognizable, but somehow, somewhere, in at least one cell, different because for a moment something in experience has been made to stand out arrested, fixed in time, made immortal. Theatre people should make these moments happen, or consider themselves failing in their craft.

The stage is a platform for eloquence, on which life is compressed and heightened, made larger and more significant. It is a rocket that flares and sparkles and bursts, its tentacles streaming down grandly for a moment against darkness. Such reveal-

ing, thrilling moments happen in life, but they must be made to happen more often and more grandly in the theatre. The theatre is the place in which to enlarge and illumine life.

But in order that this may be done, life must be looked at: the world crowding around, of sections, of city, of state, of farm and crossroads, of our own country, of the entire globe. One must constantly seek to comprehend the flow of the tides of man in the aggregate, his needs, his impulses, and his right to dignity. It's a large order to be alive in the world today. It's strenuous and often demoralizing. But the more we seek to know and to comprehend, and to add what we can to make it bearable for ourselves and others to live, the more revelation we stumble on, and the more we possess the power to change that world.

As revelation comes, we find that we have something to say. As individuals we begin to have a special and unique wisdom. If we are to draw on this, it's time to ask ourselves: what do we know? what have we got to say? how are we going to say it in the theatre? This means a very clear program, not merely of schedule and plays, but of policy, of aims and goal. Nothing on this green earth survives without an idea behind it, a burning abstract compulsion, a pure concept, a central notion and aim. This country would be completely disorganized and probably in ruins — certainly at war — we would be many bickering states and tongues — if it had not been for some common ideas and ideals. We now largely believe that every man has a right to live and a right to work; true, we have staggered forward, and back a little, then forward again a little farther, trying to achieve a government truly of the people, by the people and for the people. But the point is that we would not be going anywhere — even staggering — unless we had that imposing ideal. One can't handle it; it can't be seen, and yet it is stronger than flesh and blood, and it outlasts them both.

An ideal, a goal, an intention, an aim — without it, there is no core to an undertaking. It is like a body without a heart to pump food to the farthermost cell. A theatre can stand

for a time without any hard and fast intentions, but in the long run, if it is to live, it must have visionary as well as practical goals. Actually, these visionary ideals exist in every theatre group, often formless and chaotic but nonetheless real. The composite need that has brought the group together is a driving force; however exact and unclear it may be, it directs the whole enterprise. There is no accident about it. Every time we cut a piece of goods to make costumes, or dab paint on a flat, or walk across the stage, or pull a curtain, or put a word on paper, we reveal ourselves, what our nature is, who we are, what we think, what we intend to do.

What a betrayal that can be. I should think that, if nothing else would, vanity at least might make us stop to consider what trivialities of soul we are revealing. I should think we would try to find out what we are doing, that we would wait to use our talents truly and deeply, in order to reveal the exact and the timeless, the important, the life-giving truth. I should think we would take the theatre seriously. I should think we would take life seriously.

LYNN RIGGS

YOUNG Oxford believes in a National Theatre. The British Drama League reports the reaction to the proposal, debated at the Oxford Union, in October, 'That this House would welcome the extension of the scheme of National Theatres, and the establishment of a Chair of Drama at Oxford. The proposal was moved by Mr. B. G. C. Webb, of Queen's College, and opposed by Mr. E. N. Rolfe, of Christ Church. Other speakers included Mr. Leslie Banks, Mr. A. G. MacDonnell and Mr. James Agate. The well-worn arguments in the negative were all trotted out, and it seemed that most of the speakers, including Mr. MacDonnell and Mr. Agate, were bent on killing the proposal by ridicule. The meeting, however, responded to Mr. Leslie Banks' well-reasoned and fervent defence, and was evidently impressed by the fact that he alone of all the speakers was a working practitioner in the theatre. The resolution was adopted'.

167

Theatre Arts Bookshelf

BLASTING: WORK SUSPENDED
*Arena, by Hallie Flanagan. Duell, Sloan and Pearce: $3.*

THE LAST chapter of Hallie Flanagan's record of the Federal Theatre, in the book which she calls *Arena*, bears the same heading as this review — 'Blasting: Work Suspended'. It is an account of the final liquidation of the Federal Theatre Project and is full of bitterness and righteous indignation, yet it is one of the most informing and hopeful chapters in this large and provocative volume. The very first paragraph makes the point of the book:

'The entire history of Federal Theatre points to one dynamic fact, profoundly significant for the future of the stage: that the theatre, often regarded even by members of its own profession as dead or dying, still has tremendous power to stir up life and infuse it with fire. It is probable that during the last four years more discussion of the theatre took place in the House and Senate and in congressional committees than in all the other years of our congressional history taken together. . . . Eloquent speeches were made for and against the theatre as an art and as an institution; Shakespeare came into the discussion, and Marlowe, and Aris totle. . . . Months after [Federal Theatre] was ended, fights about its merits and demerits were still going on in congressional cloakrooms. No one fights over a dead art or a dead issue.'

How the Federal Theatre came into

being as part of a great relief project, what its problems were — political, social, financial and artistic — what it accomplished in spite of being obliged to face these problems, singly and together, day by day through all the years of its existence, makes an illuminating record. To this story of accomplishment, told in generous detail, most of the book is devoted. With Mrs. Flanagan's usual sense of showmanship, she has divided it chapter by chapter — one is almost tempted to say act by act — in such a way as to show what Federal Theatre meant in various parts of the country, to the races separate and intermingled that make up our great democracy, and to the actors and technicians working within the theatre itself. Almost everyone knows the highlights of this dramatic story — the large new audience created for the theatre, the work done in parks, playgrounds and hospitals, the impetus given to the Negro theatre, the success of the Living Newspaper, the great adventure in putting on a score of simultaneous productions of Sinclair Lewis' *It Can't Happen Here*. Those things, and the big numbers that were always attached to Federal Theatre releases, made news day by day wherever these things happened. If the WPA Public Relations Department was, as Mrs. Flanagan says, parsimonious when it came to sending out reports of Federal Theatre accomplishments, certainly the Federal Theatre Publicity Department made up for that, and found the press of the country and its readers distinctly responsive.

The reasons why the Federal Theatre failed under these circumstances or why, as Mrs. Flanagan prefers to think, it was blasted out of existence by Congress in spite of its success, are not so inspiring. But there are some of us who care as much for a federal theatre, a people's theatre, as Mrs. Flanagan does, who still believe that the Federal Theatre — organized, financed and controlled as a part of the WPA relief project — had so many weak spots in its foundation, was in so many ways a house divided against itself, that no matter how it grew at the top, it must have fallen in the end. Perhaps the best thing for a permanent federal theatre was for this particular Federal Theatre to close and reckon up its accounts, as Mrs. Flanagan does so thoroughly and eloquently in *Arena*.

Anybody who had watched the progress of the Federal Theatre and the handicaps put in its way from its inception, anybody who knew the mind of Congress at all, knew what must happen in the end. The cry of 'subversive activity' which was raised by the congressional investigating committees under whose axe the Federal Theatre finally fell could easily be recognized as one of those sturdy prejudices on which Congressmen know they can rely for public support when they intend to get rid of something for reasons which they do not care to be called upon to explain or to justify.

The theatre is an unpopular institution in America; the theatre in America, moreover, is an unsound business and an art that is only slowly finding its way to integration. It is a battlefield for groups within and without its own borders. Neither Congress nor the public knows its laws. Whenever it has come to Washington, it has brought trouble with it, and no recompense in the way of votes. Congress wants none of it, although a few years ago, hoping to stop its appeals, without any grants of funds it blithely granted a federal charter, like that held by the Red Cross and the Smithsonian Institution, to a non-existent and entire unplanned 'American National Theatre and Academy'. Mrs. Flanagan

168

S - 2

3.

Life Into This Room

By bringing life into this room.
Alertness
Attention for 1 hr.

For something is going to happen here.

Not from me. From us.

Contribute. And why?

Do you know what an experience is?

(Read John Dewey -
Having an Experience)

In that door at 9. Out at 10.

In that door on Sept. 17, 1941. Out on Dec. 5.

About the denial of experience: TALE - DAD AND THE LOCKED DOOR.

I am not going to rob myself here.

Expect to get something out of it - or I'm a fool to do this.

********

4.

The Course

What is it going to be like?

TALE - how I decided on the kind of course.
(4th of July, several days later - dinner, Hitler, home-5mins.
Myself.

What do I actually know?
(after 15 years in theatre)
(In college nothing but savage English)
Technique? No.

The qualities, the equipment of the great writers, more
especially the dramatists (but true of other artists)

AND -painters, poets, novelists, actors, students, firemen
anyone whose work or life has light in it

ART AS EXPERIENCE

John Dewey

p. 35. Chapter III. Having an Experience.

... Oftentimes, however, the experience had is inchoate. Things are experienced but not in such a way that they are composed into an experience. There is distraction and dispersion; what we observe and what we think, what we desire and what we get, are at odds with each other. We put our hands to the plow and turn back; we start and then we stop, not because the experience has reached the end for the sake of which it was initiated but because of extraneous interruptions or of inner lethargy.

In contrast with such experience, we have an experience when the material experienced runs its course to fulfillment. Then and then only is it integrated within and demarcated in the general stream of experience from other experiences. A piece of work is finished in a way that is satisfactory; a problem receives its solution; a game is played through; a situation, whether that of eating a meal, playing a game of chess, carrying on a conversation, writing a book, or taking part in a political campaign, is so rounded out that its close is a consummation and not a cessation. Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency. It is an experience.

... For life is no uniform uninterrupted march or flow.

p. 36. ... A flight of stairs, mechanical as it is, proceeds by individualized steps, not by undifferentiated progression, ...

p. 36... Experience in this vital sense is defined by those situations and episodes that we spontaneously refer to as being "real experiences"; those things of which we say in recalling them, "that was an experience." It may have been something of tremendous importance -- a quarrel with one who was once an intimate, a catastrophe finally averted by

Sympathy -- 44

The dictionary says:

**Sympathy** - An affinity, association or relationship between things so that whatever affects one, similarly affects the other or others. The act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings, interests, etc. of another.

**Empathy** - Imaginative projection of one's own consciousness into another being.

## Understanding

How often people say, "I understand." But do they?
Simple directions, yes.

But - man lay in a ditch all night. Love.

Man -pins in flesh to punish the self.

Mrs. Bertha Fehrenschild --

(INSERT NEXT PAGE)

How could Mrs. make herself go to offer
sympathy?

How did she feel after rebuff?

How did rebuffers feel?

Do you understand any of this?

Do you understand hunger, poverty? brutality in others - men
**in yourself?**

If you do with the mind, it is **inevitably** not enough. **The way**
**you** do it, you understand has its root deep in childhood.

## Identification

The flash of at-oneness.

The giving up of the ego. You are **the thing itself**.

(Edna St. Vincent Millay's
Renascence)

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

From Renascence

(She touched the sky. Knew all,
felt all, etc.)

Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire, ---
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,-- then mourned them for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I. ...

(She sank into the grave.
The rain set her free. The
ecstasy of re-birth)

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,--
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

-0-

S - 5

This is so important, I want to
give you several illustrations -
so you won't forget it.

a. **Van Gogh and the miners:**
Belgian - The Borinage, the "black country."
Took hut, slept on ground, coal sack leggings,
Took care of typhod and TB patients day and night
Became more wreathed than they.
Completely one of them. His own life lost.

b. Andre Gide. ~~Belgian Congo.~~

c. **Hauptmann.**
Grandfather, a Silesian weaver.
Sense of social injustices kept him from being
anything. Finally, <u>The Weavers.</u>

d. The college professor.
Who are you?
Why are you so reticent?
Finally: the egg and his mother. Hunger.

e. Stevenson, and Father Damien. (Molokai, Hawaii)
2 years after D's death - Rev. Dr. Hyde and
xEXX "dirty, bigoted, coarse, and
not pure" "My brother. We恨 us."
Stevenson calls his family :
Libelous, dangerous, and law suit.
Do it, they said.

f. Chekhov and Melikhovo. Sick, sick... But cholera. And she Dr. 666666666
Are you wondering where this came
from, how these people got that way?

g. I used to wonder too.

TALE - Santa Fe. Me - my job.
Others - Indians, Mexicans, water rights.
right to dance, keeping town itself.
What did they have that I didn't, or wasn't using?

h. Consider. Housing projects. One in Waco. What this means.

1. John Donne --

(next page)

S-6

"No man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;

if a clod bee washed away by the sea, Europe is the
lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as
if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were;

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved
in Mankind;

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee."

Where does it come from, this feeling?

What nourished it into a passion, how-
ever fleeting?

Well, listen to this:

Chautauqua tour. Josh Lee. Joseph Bentonelli.

Missouri Valley, Iowa. The Mosquitoes.

My bookstore habit. Red Cloud, Neb.

The books of Willa Cather.

The sister. *My Antonia*, *A Lost Lady*.

Cather's saying: Childhood. Before ten.

Yes! That must be so.

Then, no. New experience.

Then again belief. And why: the un-
self-consciousness and purity and
identification.

(TALE: LEIF ERICKSON -- CREAM. His acting. And why.)

NOW you know why I asked for something out of your early life

Helping to locate the springs by which
you have operated **at your clearest.**

Before self-consciousness.

Before conscious abnegation.

Before *mind*.

E-1

SECOND WEEK---EMOTION

1.

Definitions

Emotion- Fr. L. (e - movere--to move out)

Any one of the states designated as fear, anger, disgust, grief, joy, surprise, yearning, etc.

Syn.--feeling

3. That quality of a work of art which embodies and is calculated to convey the emotion of the artist.

Sterility

Aridity- The state of being without moisture. Dryness, Barenness. And thus incapable of producing or supporting life.

2.
The Anglo Tradition

Is it? We're not all Anglos.

I certainly am not. What am I?

English Art---Where is it?

3.
Restraint

a. Take the English boy. "I say, are those icebergs drifting toward England or toward America?"

b. Take the Spartan tale of the fox (see Durant)

c. Take the Indian (or so reported)

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
I.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed,
And the great star early drooped in the western sky
in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

II.

O powerful western fallen star!

O shades of night--O moody tearful night!

O great star disappeared--O the black murk that hides
the star!

O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless
soul of me!

O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul!

-----Walt W hitman

E - 3

4.
Impediments

What happens if the Emotional outpouring is impeded?--
In life? you say.

What is the cause (other than cellular and racial inheritance)?
Habit?
Custom?
Fear of Revelation?
Dryness of spirit?
Slavery to the little calculations and
Synthetic planning of the Mind.

You do this. Tell me sometime what you discover--

LOOK AT STAGE NOW

LOOK AT NOVELS NOW

LOOK AT POETRY NOW

LOOK AT JOURNALISM NOW

LOOK AT COLUMNS NOW--Brown. (Pegler).
Winchell--Fidler.

Consider examples:

Noel Coward (not his fault perhaps)
(QUOTE)

The neat and sentimental

Maxwell Anderson
(QUOTE)

The blood show.

Listen, Mind

Can't go browsing and worshiping the fast.

Read Lanier-- Man at end of life.

Put the mind in its place

FREE THE FEELING

UNSHACKLE THE HEART AND THE BLOQUET TONGUE.

5
FEEL
Summary of above.

---0---

A - 2

3.
<u>The Sense of Fitness</u>

**TALE**-- One on me: L. Stallings' house years ago--
Paul Green, K. Vidor, a certain nameless play-
wright, famous actress, Walter Lippman.

(The times your sense of fitness breaks down-)

<u>Important</u> (Learn to <u>know</u> - the essence, the mood of a situation)

<u>Nazimova</u> in <u>Blood and Sand</u>.

The actors--whether from choice, colorlessness,
orders-- how they paled out - made
themselves rigid for their scenes.

**WHY?** A artist.

(SILVER LAKE EPISODE * A DIGRESSION)

<u>Tale</u>-- Stage: Pauline Lord- Sidney Howard--

<u>Strange Interlude</u> in Los Angeles.

Recognition of lack in self.

4.
<u>What it Means to be Dominated</u>

The successful writer in <u>Sea Gull</u>--
What's so wonderful about it?

(Read passage)

His <u>helplessness</u> his personal life in
<u>service, servitude</u>

What about <u>Shaw</u>? He dominates. Does that make him less?

<u>Perhaps</u>.

Werfel--

The intellectual ironies--

The concealed emotion

No pumping--

Didn't reach -- but not his fault.

A - 3

(Theater Guild.--Describe production and read.
Who is the villain?)

The playwright - me--

The gross artistic failure of a play that
split in the middle.

Explain--

****************

5.
The Delicate Balance

Playwright as audience--

Half-actor or half-audience

(In life)

(In work)

(or director really--who is the string
of transmission?)

Writer as observer - The same.

H. Matthews and the bombing of Barcelona.

(Not only how he felt--

What he apprehended in others -
Giving himself up to that terror, and
that strength, and that sorrow, and
that defiance)

Letter to George and Georgiana Keats

from John Keats

Friday, Feb. 18.

The day before yesterday I went to Romney Street--
your Mother was not at home--but I have just written her
that I shall see her on Wednesday. I called on Mr. Lewis
this morning--he is very well--and tells me not to be un-
easy about Letters, the chances being so arbitrary. He
is going on to an usual among his favourite democrat papers.
We had a chat as usual about Cobbett and the Westminster
electors. Dilke has lately been very much harrassed about
the manner of educating his son--he at length decided for
a public school--and then he did not know what school--
he at last has decided for Westminster; and as Charley
is to be a day boy, Dilke will remove to Westminster.
We lead very quiet lives here--Dilke is at present in Greek
histories and antiquities, and talks of nothing but the
electors of Westminster and the retreat of the ten-thousand.
I never drink now above three glasses of wine--and never
any spirits and water. Though by the bye, the other day
Woodhouse took me to his coffee house and ordered a Bottle
of Claret--now I like Claret, whenever I can have Claret
I must drink it,--it is the only palate affair that I am
at all sensual in. Would it not be a good speck to send
you some vine roots--could it be done? I'll enquire--If
you could make some wine like Claret to drink on summer
evenings in an arbour! For really 't is so fine--it fills
one's mouth with a gushing freshness--then goes down cool
and feverless--then you do not feel it quarrelling with
your liver--no, it is rather a Peacemaker, and lies as
quiet as it did in the grape; then it is as fragrant as
the Queen Bee, and the more ethereal Part of it mounts
into the brain, not assaulting the cerebral apartments
like a bully in a bad-house looking for his trull and
hurrying from door to door bouncing against the wainst-
coat, but rather walks like Aladdin about his own enchanted
palace so gently that you do not feel his step.

T - 2

### 3. Incongruities in Taste

1. TALE--The school teacher who told bawdy stories.
I shocked--and why.

2. TALE--New Mexico and Texas Tale-
"Curio" home.
Why do we shudder?

3. TALE--Hollywood tale-
The girl who boasted of her discovery of
orange for water in a picture.
Why shocking and disgusting?
The inept transfer of the sensations of
one thing (and extremely intimate
ones at that) to another and dissimilar
reality.

4. TALE--Consider:
W. O'K--
(and records)
The rhythms.
The imposed new rhythms.
(His performance in <u>G. C.</u>)
Related to P. 62--Art, Clive Bell.

5. Non-stability of qualities in dramatist.

****************

6. Non-stability of qualities in dramatist.

Question: What would you say?

Page-footer: "Having to do so now".

9. James- Galveston- Dad owned boat
   Caught in squall. 9 years old.
   Not scared. Having good time.
   Dad grounded boat on reef.
   First time scared to death.

10. Briscoe- 6 or 7--Tomboy
But girl came to play dolls.
Boy came in showing off.
Socked him--lay still and bleeding
Afraid of blood.

11. McElroy- 9 years old-- Home. Ill, nightmare.
Huge gray inanimate object chased him.
Father slapped him to restore him.

12. Farrow- 8 years. 3 younger brothers.
A mateur production in Servant's house.
Brother beat her. Played beast.

13. Drummond- 9--Pageant- rehearsing.
Moved piano. Topped, crushed foot.
Couldn't/walk. Hated teacher before.
Delighted at her difficulty.

14. Hinely- (Consciously used phraseology)
Feeding chichens. A pple
Rooster bit her.

15. Quick- Fishing trip- 6 - Foothills, Ozarks
"The old way- trot line"- Turmoil
Maybe dog on line. River rising--
"Pop--my feet gettin' wet." -- More and more.
Finally "Pop--I'm wet". --

16. Cass--
Rolled dolls on street. Cracked heads.
Couldn't repair them.
World broken.

17. Meredith- 7 or 8 "Secret 3" -favorite radio program
Waiting for mustache and things. Playing.
Wanted drink.
Found things. Dressed
Elaborate actions to gain attention.
Too long a story. Sheriff came.--

18. Heard--
Mere child--5-- Grandmother's cold biscuit pierced--
Molasses poured in.
Turkey chased him for biscuit--
Stuck hand in hot water.
Potato wrapped for remedy--

19. Sears--"Most awful thing happened."
Friends on creek. Saturday visit
Offered tobacco to chew.
"It was about 30 minutes before I knew the boys were
spitting."

20. Hawkins-

Had sandpile. Mused.

Concocted song. Leadpipe.

"Yesterday was my favorite day,
I could have had the army."

21. Youngblood- (So many physical accidents)--

Afraid of nothing. Dark.--

Stood by the trunks. Father scared him.
by standing on something beyond.

22. Crews- "Always the hero" - Fifth grade.

April Fool's. Played hooky.

"A cloud such as Jeremiah saw."

Teacher bragged on return. Rain--

23. Thomas-

"My mother thought I was lonely."

Imaginary Madalyn and Pig.

"Androcles and the Lion's Den"

Father promised her the lion.

She was drawing picture of God for her mother.

Daddy hadn't brought lion. Amused.

She was Crushed and bitter.

Sept 23, 1941

24. Jenkins- 8 years old

Penny to go to kitchen in dark.

Father in back door.

Asked him to stay.

Made 5 trips---5 pennies.

25. Thornton-- A marillo--6 years old--

Found dark glasses--Said she would go blind.

Attention she received.

26. Baylor-

Thought Father perfect.

Father went in barn to get chaps.

He was tromped on by horse.

Immense pressure on her. Books imprinted on her.

Pretty clear picture and feeling.

Laughed at last hysterically.

27. Greer- Can't date this.

Lived in big white house.

Peach orchard. Rain.

(Read this) instead of talking.

Felt lost. Not in the world.

28. Fulgham-

Played Hansel & Gretel.

Eating cookies. Not scared.

New and wonderful experience.

Never felt ashamed.

29. Kolb-

Went to hospital to have tonsils out.

Told that doctors used rakes, hoes, etc. in operation.

Under ether, saw all this.

30. Lindsey- 6 or 7
Grandfather got up at 4 or 5. She did too.
The beautiful star.
**Ran and saw the star.**

3

31. Williams-
Running away from home.
Lunch wrapped up.
Going to river 3 blocks away.
Noted the dump. So large. Sand bars
Lonesome.

32. Compton- 9 years old.
Loved her desk, and also negro girl, Mattie Clyde
So black that she marked on her like blackboard.

33. Lee- 6 or 7
Left with little boy while mother shopped.
Pinching baby

34. Dixon-
Part dream; part reality
School giving play.
Didn't understand the fantasy. Couldn't.

35. Bryant- 4th grade--9th
"Som(th)ing-left ~~out~~ th"--
Had to make 100 in spelling.

36. Harris- 7 or 8
Baseball--slung bat. "I figgered I'd kilt him".
Boy still has a knot on his head.

37. Meek-
Only companion-an older sister.
Climb trees (where Baylor gym is now)
Fell from tree.

38. Murray--
"Grandfather always getting in trouble with outlaws".
Texas Ranger. Paper dolls out of Sears Roebuck
Catalogue. Shorts
Man shot--went to town.
Car shot at.

39. Bush- 12.
Went to store for mother.
"Just throw money on counter, son"
Stole candy.
Hound at door, stared at him. Eyes bored through
him.
Put candy back. Dog still staring.

40. Walker- N.W. Texas
Boys on bike.
Went with bunch to river--3 miles.
Saw red earth, nothing
Couldn't get thermos open.
"Went home--Archie got a whipping, I got a drink."

41. Cooper-
Scrap with his brothers- Only fight except
with 1 girl. Fought with girl.
Mouse had something to do with it.

42. Beavers- 5
Playing with cousin 13.
Pretended to throw bricks.
So he threw brick. Hit cousin.
All emotions. Not knowing how to react.

43. Markham- 6 or 7
Marsh hen scratching-
"Confessions of a Murderer"
Spent Sunday in country with cousins near Hashell.
Sense impression, clear.
Kids filling hats with torsos of grasshoppers.
Took loot into house for elders. Such horror,
and also revulsion on mother's face.
Home by carriage, first lecture that night.
Tortured with ghosts of grasshoppers.

44. Skipper- 5- Timid-
Sunday School Nursery--looked crowd all over.
One girl looked "Yellow" all over--"
Put her in supply closet.
Next Sunday same thing-- 6 Sundays

45. Carpenter- Picture in my mind--Cemetery.
Pale summer day.
Pink Earth, people around grave, singing.
Small girl, lay in back seat of car.
Cousin-18-heart. (That) hung over house.
Refused to leave car--afraid of burial herself.
'It wasn't fear. It was everything.'

---0---

CHARACTERS

September, 29, 1941

1. Ratcliffe-

Had a feeling for policeman- 50.

Spent daily 3 hours in Korean's barber shop.

Barber's name, Choo

(Nice feeling)

2. Baylor-

Ernesto- lazy good-for-nothing Mexican.

Fat, dirty, sloppy, vain and lazy.

Couldn't see the cows.

Glasses. Wore them in hat.

(Sunny-not deeply felt)

3. Thomas-

"I like Billy Beaver" in blood on window sill.

Mosquito. Scratched for days.

Nonchalance of B. on bicycle.

Girls and boys all in sailor pants.

(Rambling, but neat)

4. Sears-

Little girl--made fun of her in school.

She was different. Now she's lost her mind.

---Mary--- thought Sears was an angel to take
care of her.

Knew about stars, etc.

Inspired her.

(Her feeling good)

5. Quick-

Man 65, ran picture-framing shop.

Left store open when he ate.

"Sot" in his ways--in every way.

(Surface presentation)

6. James-

Wayne Rorer- in A&M. My best friend.

("With my parents and I")

Football game with him.

He went on with others.

Casual but understanding.

Double-date to Houston. Forgot him.

(Casual but sincere)

Sept. 30, 1941

7. Lee-

Girl friend of mine. 6 months ago.

Almost wreck. Gun pulled.

One girl just sat there.

Took down conversation, got number.

(Exterior)

8. Bush-

Girl "Normal" or not?

Atheistic.

I want to help her.

Don't know what to do.

(Him- not object)

9. Williams-

3- Moving from farm to Bass Rock

(Details from present--not from then)

Girl to greet them.

Biscuit in mouth, talking.

Best of friends.

10. Lindsey-

Girl attacked her in third grade.

Ugly. Lived in a camp.

Told her off.

Learned about inequality and injustice.

11. Crews-

Gone to new school.

Boy seemed frail. Coveralls, Straw sailor.

Long black hair. "Strange effect on me."

Learned later mother had died.

That was it.

(Exterior)

12. Youngblood-

3 years ago.

Roommate--fond of games.

Ambitious- but gave up for golf, etc.

Couldn't understand it.

(Exterior)

13. Walker-

Old negro used to work for us.

Glasses. One eye. Black.

Worshipped him.

Split wife's head open.

Worship- to fear and hate.

(Exterior)

14. Nelson-

Character "Simple"--

Dutchman. Tobacco juice.

Thin, short, homely.

All one color.

Voice weak and squeaky.

"He irritated me."

Kind--but...

40. Murray-
Grammar school principal.
Not five feet tall.
Re-decorating library--for something to do.

41. McIver-
Her childhood hero.--Amelia Earhart.
Conjunctive about her before her speech.
Spell-bound.
After her loss, tried to imagine fate.

42. Beavers-
An aunt--Couldn't decide what to do.
Kept locking doors behind her.
Quilting, nothing interested her long.
Did nothing.

43. Carpenter-
Early. Dry but soft.
Down street. Two women.
One short plump in black, respectable.
Tall slender girl. Blonde hair, dishwater color.
Face brown--streaked. Teeth decayed. Talking.
Reserve in eye, but desire to be understood.
Sobbing.

44. Markham-
Hero worshipped teachers.
Pretended disdain.
One teacher disliked.--Irritating in every way.
Big, big mouth.
Hated voice. 6th Grade.
Ridicule. Punishments.
"I am a giggler."
50 years of misuse of voice.
Sopranos squeaked. "Fun and frolic".
Boys--one at a time. "And so do I."
Long tale. Found Miss Nelly sobbing.
Felt guilty. Understood once for a moment.

45. Bell- (Visitor)
Vivid most recent experience.
Polish man. Politician day before election.
Mr. Stern.
"This is my grand-daughter."
"Youngest oldest man I ever saw."

-------0-------

October 9, 1941

I WISH YOU WERE ALL WRITERS.

I WISH YOU WERE ALL WRITING.

WHY?

You write better than you talk.

Look here--in this class:

1. Student with:

Great sense of order,
balance,
honesty,
humility.

Not much power yet-- but *lyric* writing.
Like a song.

2. With intellectual powers quite unusual. But striking emotional fury--and contempt. *Cool, sardonic power.*

Has felt no *change*. Has seen nothing *new*.

Voices this as a complaint--and a protest.

I wish this power were turned into creation.
It would be something.

3. Student--with uncanny ability to pick details to illustrate meanings. Some witty, some absurd, some curious--and *all from life*-- her *own* life.

4. Who thinks I don't talk enough. Your stories put him to sleep, or annoy him. Very clear about what he wants.

5. Who thinks students ought to talk all the time-- and I ought to shut up.
The experience of looking has given him
something so unexpected, he wants to do
it all the time.
What if he would write?

6. One with incredible memory.

Is it as good about life as about the course?

If so, there's a gold mine.

All she needs is to begin to mine--and develop
the tools. Nothing has escaped her.
(This may be bad--or good. Depending on
how it is used).

7. One with *tact*. *Such* side-stepping--so I shall not know what he thinks.

I can't even tell whether he likes the *course*,
hates the students--steals, lies.

A masterly concealment. *This* is writing.

8. One so spineless,
bewildered,
uncertain,
confused, but clear.

Hopelessly adrift.
It hurts to read.

This too is writing, you know.

9. One who makes a tough comic character for himself.
Irreverent, Independent, Bawdy.

Starts fine. Bogs down--loses the character, and what
he has to say in himself--and as himself--dull and
badly written.

Equipment for characterizations there clearly.

10. One who, talking, retracts, retraces steps, no grammar,
Can't say what he means--but colorful.

In paper: Clear, spells correctly, neat orderly--
and absolutely deadly.

---Dull---Colorless---

(Doesn't respect his personality enough)

(a) Did I say good writers led <u>good</u> lives? (In conventional sense)
(Lots of them don't. You know that)

Theo. Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis--fist fight at a
public dinner.

Byron- Incestuous connections with sister.

The Greeks.

Do you know the history of Sophocles? Read it.

Not only writers:

<u>Julius Caesar.</u> His record?

<u>Napoleon.</u> There's something.

Actors:

Hollywood actor--Murder.

Yes. And term--.

(b) Did I say America would be lots better off if we had bull-fighting instead of football?

(c) Did I say we ought to make out own rules about everything?
Could you write the Declaration of Independence?

The Constitution? Dictate the foreign policy
of the United States?

(d) Did I say "Taste is like an avocado--it doesn't mean a thing"?

What if this is all <u>humor</u>?

If so--is it good? Certainly. It's humorous writing--

----0----

F - 3

## 2. In the Arts

### In Painting--

The splurging detail and historical period--

The sentimentality.

The recording.

The revolution of the Post-Impressionists:

Total significant form--

and relation of lesser forms--masses, lines
(color less?) to total.

### In Architecture--

Greek invention--

(See Druant)

### In Novel--

Say, Maugham's-- *Cakes and Ale*.

Built on chonology.

Say, Steinbeck's--*Grapes of Wrath*.

Built on *lyric* chapter--the general.

Realt騫n realistic chapter--the particular.

**Total form** --- to suggest this is not
one family--it is 10,000 families--
who have rights.

### In Poetry--

Ignoring usual--:

Take *Free Verse*.

Same thing happened at its exploitation as
happened with invention of fox trot--
anyone could do it.