Statement (verse)
Roche, Loretta
618 T H E C O M M O N W E A L October 28, I925 emasculate group of repellant egoists, who talk in phrases which are presumably epigrams, but which as a rule are deadly inanities. The better the...
...Snobs, snobs everywhere l Yet, in contemplating them, we can take a little comfort in the thought that in reality they are the most wretched, unhappy people on the top of the globe...
...They are rulers in the great army of snobs who become their ardent and admiring disciples...
...No one dares to say that the play is bad and that the performance is boring...
...Statement Oh, I shall hide it in a veil of sound-- I shall make pleasant fictions, to enhance The moment when by tricky moves of chance We find ourselves again on shifting ground...
...It seldom occurs to the captious critics to dig beneath the surface results and to ask themselves seriously whether in this groping, this stretching toward far horizons, and this frequently imperfect attainment, there is not the inescapable evidence of sincerity and ever in-creasing purpose...
...This, at least, is the impression gathered from scanning the *Drawings for the Theatre, by Robert Edmond Jones...
...The more complex the organism which science has dis-closed, the more awful and imperative becomes this question of why the organism should exist at all--of why the soul should aspire, of why the will should hunger, of why the flames of love should consume and purify, of why beauty should be born only of anguish...
...Scenic artists are re-placed by upholsterers and curtain hangers...
...The so-called art-theatres are increasing by leaps and bounds...
...These mystical words are not drawn from any hook of prayer...
...New York: Theatre drts, Incorporated...
...I have heard it said that the experimental theatres, by per- mitting their imagination to leap too far, have landed in a chasm of mediocrity or absurdity...
...They live to be in evidence from morning until night...
...No matterm For you are gone...
...They discover geniuses over night...
...The hangman's noose is ever about their necks...
...You will be always wise enough to bring A light to show you where the path is sure...
...They are the words of a theatrical producer of New York, of a man who has revealed his inner and nobler thoughts only in a moment of inspiration, standing before the .9 J naked soul of a great artist of the theatre...
...The more incomprehensible and boresome the entertainment, the larger the audience...
...LORETTA ROCHE...
...DOROTHY CRUIKSHANK...
...The spirit of man trembles and recoils before the enlargement of these mysteries, and then it is that the soul of the artist sets forth to those "rich, far places where to him shines the face of God...
...Was it the moon--or you, who spoke...
...Artistic genius is quite as fallible as science itself, but with the added excuse that it is exploring regions where logic and observable facts are of small help...
...Words have I heard, but only one rememberm "Lover"--it echoes morning, night and noon...
...The artist must, of necessity, have in him something of the true mystic...
...If the writer comes from overseas, the product of modish society in a foreign country, that is quite enough to advance his prices and stimulate his market...
...If I acknowledge that I still am bound Remembering a voice---that one swift stroke Will yet beat ash and ember into smoke--- You need not think that all this will be found A symbol of surrender to a thing I have long known to be a witch's lure...
...Moon Magic Moons have I seen, but only one believe in-This pallid thing can never be the moon: She lives in Luxor by a languid river, Making the gardens silver like a swoon, And all the world is different where she watches...
...THOSE RICH, FAR PLACES By R. DANA SKINNER W HAT an astounding paradox it is that the utmost explorations of science serve only to deepen the utter mystery of life, of love and of death...
...At the very least we should credit them with the courage of the leap...
...His creative endeavor must travel the paths of imperfection, of partial illumination, of deep and terror-stricken night, of the temptation of pride, of the glow of humility...
...Perhaps further study and effort at understanding would show that from each plunge to failure, they have risen a little higher than before...
...They take themselves so seriously that they lose all sense of comedy...
...I do not walk your way...
...5.0o...
...It is the same with art, and above all it is the same with drama...
...The various groups of men and women directing the leading "experimental theatres" have been accused far too often of an exaggerated interest in the grotesque, the bizarre and the purely expressionistic aspects of the theatre...
...and this is not the moon: She waits in Luxor by a languid river...
...His work, as it passes before us in daily panorama, must be judged with the same fine charity with which we appraise the progress of any soul toward perfection--that is, by its fixity and nobility of purpose rather than by the number of its pitiful and bold failures...
...It is only at rare moments that he finds himself gifted with utter clarity of sight and insight and with the simultaneous power to create in outward form the truth of his inner vision...
...in your design No space was ever left for hand of mine...
...They are from the introduction of Arthur Hopkins to a book of drawings for the theatre by Robert Edmond Jones.* I have quoted them with thankfulness because they illuminate so much that has seemed mysterious and inexplicable in the strivings of the newer art of the theatre, so much that rises as a challenge to our sympathy and deeper understanding...
...The better the English, the purer the style, the more noble the thought, the less has such fiction any place upon the bookshelves of today...
...618 T H E C O M M O N W E A L October 28, I925 emasculate group of repellant egoists, who talk in phrases which are presumably epigrams, but which as a rule are deadly inanities...
...Amateur acting and amateur management are multiplying...
...The critics are as much snobs as the readers...
...Poor creaturesmthey are to be pitied, not envied...
...When science has gloriously answered the first questions of childhood, when it has told you how the laws of life tread mightily onward, you still find yourself bowed humbly before the ultimate and greater question of all mankindmthe immutable and unanswerable, why...
Vol. 2 • October 1925 • No. 25
