Those Rich, Far Places
Skinner, R. Dana
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...
...They are rulers in the great army of snobs who become their ardent and admiring disciples...
...in your design No space was ever left for hand of mine...
...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...
...The Catholic colleges are here...
...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...
...MAltY CAROLYN" DAVIES...
...This is what I have given you," says Mr...
...Somewhere in the maze of car-pentry, painting, lighting and the challenge of a third dimension viewed from many seating angles, the primitive beauty and truth of the sketches have either disappeared or been sorrow- fully compromised...
...The revolt against photographic realism has been well started and we have the measureless satisfaction of knowing that it is not a negative revolt...
...Words have I heard, but only one rememberm "Lover"--it echoes morning, night and noon...
...of Her Lips But of her lips he made a song...
...Yet perhaps the loss is not quite irreparable...
...So, to Mr...
...But I am sure they welcome constructive suggestion...
...Jones's creative designs...
...and this is not the moon: She waits in Luxor by a languid river...
...October 28, 1925 T H E C O M M O N W E A L 619 bold and often poignant drawings of Mr...
...Jones himself tells us, one finds "a glowing air, a region of fire wherein the soul of the artist must move forever and have its being"--in these high purposes the revolt has risen to a splendid creative impulse...
...Can we not aim at such a Catholic university in New Yorkuhere, where the men and the money are plentiful...
...It is the same with art, and above all it is the same with drama...
...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...
...The critics are as much snobs as the readers...
...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 sight of her, the light of her Were all she ever gave...
...But most of the drawings fill one with a sense of sadness and irreparable loss in the knowledge that no theatre has yet conveyed to its audience the full richness and mastery of Mr...
...DOROTHY CRUIKSHANK...
...And we have, beside, the evidence that even their imperfect translation to the stage has brought a new completeness and a fresh ideal of poetic unity to the theatre of today...
...It gave something of the immeasurable space indicated in the fireside drawing in the present book...
...At the very least we should credit them with the courage of the leap...
...His song will live on living lips When she is dead...
...But in doing this, they also lay bare the tragedy of many sad failures...
...In New York we see Columbia University, made up of many colleges, academic and professional...
...But of her eyes he made a stave...
...Why restrict it...
...You will be always wise enough to bring A light to show you where the path is sure...
...It is also claimed that the British empire is based on the same policy, and that the colossal failure of England and Ireland was due to her violation of that policy...
...Of course, scholastic people would llke to observe a controversy conducted in a more restrained and academic way...
...But of her cruelty he wrought A song, and of her scornful head...
...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...
...Surely all the religious conducting Catholic colleges would look forward to a day when we, in the twentieth cen- tury, might have great Catholic universities like Bologna, Paris, Padua, where Dominicans and Franciscans taught side by side...
...Molanphy, I would say--"Measure your cloth !" The Catholic colleges exist...
...Jones, so exquisitely and faithfully reproduced in this new book...
...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...
...And so I want to propose---"All honor to Mr...
...but the attainment of a great ideal presupposes labor--even unto death...
...The Catholic college movement is one of the strongest tendencies of the time...
...Could not all the small Catholic colleges in the vicinity of New York maintain their separate existences, with all the advantages inhering in the...
...The artist must, of necessity, have in him something of the true mystic...
...To talk of "restriction" is not the way, so its seems to me, to achieve the high ideal which Mr...
...The question if vital to me, as I have eventually to make the choice for my children between my own alma mater and, among others, Saint Elizabeth's or Manhattanville, or New Rochelle...
...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...
...In its intentional abandonment of the unessential, irt its striving toward a visual fulfilment of the dramatist's own dreams, and in its bold quest for "those rich, far places" where, as Mr...
...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...
...COMMUNICATIONS T CAN THE COLLEGES CO()PERATE...
...He has shed a new glow upon the ceaseless movement of the theatre toward its unattainable goal --the interpretation of man and the mystery encircling him...
...I should say that they all seem rather to be working feverishly to raise their standards and to train their faculties...
...Often it has been able to retain the essential mood of the artist...
...And so they merit no destructive criticism...
...Poor creaturesmthey are to be pitied, not envied...
...New York: Theatre drts, Incorporated...
...Of course the theatrical compromise has not always been fatal...
...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...
...LORETTA ROCHE...
...They discover geniuses over night...
...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...
...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...
...The so-called art-theatres are increasing by leaps and bounds...
...Taken by themselves, they unfold a poem of attainment...
...The hangman's noose is ever about their necks...
...The fusion of mood which Mr...
...Molanphy, and to Sister Mary Vincent, and to the graduate of the College of New Rochellel" It is refreshing to see such energy in the expression of opinion...
...Amateur acting and amateur management are multiplying...
...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...
...We now have the permanent record of the drawings themselves...
...Jones in his pictures...
...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...
...This, at least, is the impression gathered from scanning the *Drawings for the Theatre, by Robert Edmond Jones...
...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...
...No one dares to say that the play is bad and that the performance is boring...
...They live to be in evidence from morning until night...
...Scenic artists are re-placed by upholsterers and curtain hangers...
...Cut your garment according to your cloth !" The Roman empire, it is said, succeeded because of the Roman's ability to acknowledge facts, and to give people a free rein...
...First of all, may I say, in order to forestall any unfriendly attitude, that I am not only a Barnard alumna, but that I number among my most intimate and cherished friends nuns and priests in many orders and in many lands...
...Is any one of them resting on its laurels...
...It has a hard struggle...
...And the theatres can only respond with a bowed head and an unyielding purpose to struggle higher the next time...
...Is there any one of them which would declare that it has reached a state of perfection as a college...
...Perhaps further study and effort at understanding would show that from each plunge to failure, they have risen a little higher than before...
...These mystical words are not drawn from any hook of prayer...
...They are the cloth out of which is to be cut the garment of future Catholic education...
...The more incomprehensible and boresome the entertainment, the larger the audience...
...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...
...but I, for one, am delighted to see a good hot fight...
...What constructive sug- gestion ? I take my point from the letter of the Catholic Graduate of the College of New Rochelle---the glory of the mediaeval university...
...A notable example of this was the production of Hasenclever's Beyond in the small confines of the Province-town Playhouse...
...Jones is doing for the plastic and pictorial art of the drama what Wagner did for its musical expression...
...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...
...5.0o...
...I do not walk your way...
...Or again in the irony of the mirrored room for Congreve's Love for Love, achievement was almost equal to the original con-ception...
...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...
...Jones has created in his drawings has often been lost in translating the artist's vision to the stage itself...
...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...
...The proportions had to be altered, but the mood remained...
...When everybody has spoken up, and all our emotions are relieved, we may begin to realize the value of Thomistic delicacy and finesse in argument...
...No matterm For you are gone...
...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...
...Mol-anphy so evidently desires...
...The whole question arose, I think, out of The Commonweal's discussion of Catholic lethargy, and everybody ought to be glad to witness such signs of vitality, not to say pugnacity...
...His poetry has been turned into halting prose, his mobile fancy into rigid forms, his flaming lights and moving contrasts, fraught with the mystery of dreams, into the sharp definitions of electricity and floor space...
...Was it the moon--or you, who spoke...
...They take themselves so seriously that they lose all sense of comedy...
...Why not rather look ahead and try to perceive what great thing for the future can be fashioned out of this vast amount of material...
...In America, was not the Catholic University a high-hearted attempt at something of the kind...
...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...
...New York, N. Y. O the Editor:--As a Barnard graduate whose own daughters are now in a Catholic convent school, I beg to offer a few thoughts on the subject of Catholic colleges...
...They clarify by their richness, their courageous symbolism, their stark economy of detail, the ideal which the experimental theatre has set in its firmament...
...They breathe the spirit of pilgrimage...
Vol. 2 • October 1925 • No. 25
