The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
July 7, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 247 THE...
...I take it that this is the only line of activity even with an intimate and vivid sense of the theatre and a sufficient vaguely envisaged up to date...
...lowed the naming of a ways and means committee to raise Moreover, the practical details of such a method are so funds for the purposes of the society...
...Yet the novel goes merrily on, absorbing in romantic dream...
...The mingling of the East and West has been projected with some widow, learning that this man is about to make a visit of in- unusually sound psychology, excellent character drawing, and spection, decides to impersonate a parlormaid until she has had a background saturated with the brooding nostalgia of the time to get his measure...
...Only managers of considerable wealth and resources in New York recently, when some thousand people repre- can undertake play production with any margin of safety...
...a moving narrative free from the encumbrances of long wooden...
...This is the sufficient ground for disbanding the Association at once as a classic position...
...That he falls in love with the pseudo- East...
...First of all, the Church and suggest how the funds, if raised, should be used, and I heard Drama Association should raise a fund of not less than half a no practical proposals for the actual betterment of the stage...
...2.00...
...What does not exist as yet, save in the case of a obviously have a vast amount of good will in the matter, and very few high-minded millionaires, is a corporate or group as messages of encouragement piled up from every source, in- "angel," with a real knowledge of the stage, and ready to guarcluding the Cardinal Archbishop of New York and the Episco- antee initial production costs to any producer who can show palian Bishop, it is quite apparent that no narrowness of in- a valid option on a really good play, dramatically, morally, and tention is going to block the work of the Association or lead in reasonable accord with current theatre taste...
...In either case, there are certain obvious practical would be self-perpetuating and might even show an increase...
...Of character drawing there is little beyond the to remember this name for future seasons...
...New York: Alfred A. Knopf...
...In spite of this, it provides an presents a community of Christians living in an inland Japanese evening of considerable enjoyment, thanks to a number of city...
...There is the conflict of East versus West and the antagonamusing situations, and to an abundance of good acting...
...As a guest on this occasion, it is perhaps business man...
...2.00...
...A pathetic love story runs counter from a rich uncle on condition that he will marry a certain to the activities of the missionaries...
...New York: The Macmillan the working out of even so simple a plan as this...
...this part, Miss Peg Entwistle, managed in the few scenes at her The melodrama of the lost boy in the tropical forest runs away disposal to convey an impression of unusual stage authority, with proportion...
...There trasts...
...the country to the appreciation of finer drama...
...Then there should be at least two more members, A much more important matter is this: how are we to chosen perhaps from producers with fairly consistent records of persuade or encourage commercial managers to present sound varied successes whose opinion would be asked solely on the plays...
...There are plenty of men of trained and sound moral are much fewer than popular superstition would have it, yet judgment capable of distinguishing between the honest and the there is always the possibility that popular taste may not yet insincere use of dramatic material...
...would be clear and effective...
...valuable deeds...
...Another by-product of the present system is that a bit ungracious to offer criticism, but I assume from the group of men known an angels, who, with no personal knowlgeneral tone of the dinner and the meeting that followed, that edge of the stage, guarantee production costs to certain procriticism, provided it be half-way constructive, is what the ducers on the gamble of large possible profits from "a share in promoters of this organization are honestly seeking...
...Startlawyer, and the impeturbable Gavin Muir as the much-in-the- ing with the attack of the Spanish Armada, and setting much way juvenile, all helped to bring the most out of the thin situa- of its action against the life of Elizabeth's court, it yet retains tion...
...Nothing constructive THeat, by Isa Glenn...
...We have most distinctly come to a time for its loose ways the contents of the world and breaking ground action and far fewer words...
...But someone forgot to obvious as to suggest themselves...
...In the leading part obvious types...
...If a body such as the be ready to welcome a distinct innovation...
...July 7, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 247 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER The Church and Drama flssociation of big spectacles, or plays with numerous stage settings and a AN event of considerable theoretical importance took place large cast...
...From senting the stage and the church (or rather the churches...
...There are only two ways in which fund itself should be the recipient of a share of the profits of the stage can be regarded, either as a business venture or as a the play as well as the return of the principal advanced or fit subject for endowment, along with opera and symphony guaranteed...
...Black Valley is a novel of limitations, setting forth the failure of Nordics to convince Orientals of their superiority...
...He the inevitable can happen...
...note which, before the end of the evening, built up a delightful The Fourth Queen of Isabel Paterson turns back to the cumulative effect...
...There fol- that reach the production phase...
...But the novel is illy planned and executed in detail...
...New York: Boni theatre (meaning always the commercial theatre) than financial and Liveright...
...There was a The trustees in turn should select a play-reading committee to hint from one of the floor speakers, Mr...
...New York: The Viking ducer to give the play a suitable presentation...
...The spirit really practical method by which the Church and Drama Assois willing enough...
...2.00...
...2.50...
...The decision as to which plays subwill not come to the theatre, any more than they will buy a mitted would receive the backing of the fund would rest entirely food product that is poorly made...
...If the product is not good in its kind, the customers methods of accounting...
...To add to this violation of interest, Mr...
...2.00...
...It might be well nouement...
...Several practical checks the fact that of some two hundred plays tried out in New might be applied...
...Here is a it into the by-paths of fanaticism and intolerance...
...His vigorous and sensitive style records in a very minor role-that of the real parlormaid in the the natural world with such perceptions as to achieve distincromantic widow's establishment...
...Only the purpose seems weak...
...The trustees themselves would Suppose we consider the stage first as a business...
...I realize, of course, the many obstacles to be overcome in Odtaa, by John Masefield...
...The same committee could also make BOOK S recommendations to the trustees as to the ability of the pro- Black Valley, by Raymond Weaver...
...This fund should then be placed at the disThere was some vague talk of educating audiences throughout posal of a board of trustees purely for its business management...
...Now my point is that should then be empowered to guarantee from the fund producso much energy and so little practical direction of that energy tion costs up to a fixed limit, on the understanding that the is a very sad affair indeed...
...If even one- drama, it has now become the most amorphous medium of tenth of this membership would contribute the small sum of expression in the arts...
...of the practical advantages of lectures and pulpit utterances...
...They the show...
...Masefield's novel of South America is a thriller that as well as the chief comedy...
...It would start the positive current of better plays- The Red Cord, by Thomas Grant Springer...
...That much is indicated by with the play-reading committee...
...Calthorpe, the widow, Beatrice Hendricks brought to do romance of a high order, should he decide to take the pains bear a quiet assurance and a pleasant refinement of the farcical -the infinite pains of art...
...HE modern novel may run the gamut from artistic purAs to the possibility of raising the fund itself, the leaders in pose to social service...
...only if we regard it as the peak of oratory, after which will The groups of novels under review illustrates just this progcome a thankful decline and the resurgence of infinitely more ress and complexity...
...Here, then, is an Church and Drama Association cannot unite in naming one obvious field for the new Church and Drama Association-to man to whom this responsibility would be assigned, then the study and systematize the ways in which new forms of dramatic whole project should be frankly abandoned at once...
...It is an arresting, realistic novel of competent selective parlormaid, and is ready to renounce even his prospective for- construction and a compelling and adroit style...
...see them...
...It has its potential cus- supervision of sound production methods and the necessary tomers...
...But the Company...
...No influence is more quickly felt in the The Fourth Queen, by Isabel Paterson...
...Channing Pollock, whom any manager may submit a play he intends to produce...
...objective is worth it...
...Press...
...They made it an agreeable if far from hilarious evening...
...2.00...
...measures to be taken, and to ignore them is to miss the entire The division of labor in the management of this trust fund opportunity presented on such an occasion...
...Though in the beginning, the the present movement, exclusive of the Catholics, claim to English novel derived its canons from the rules of classical represent some twenty million church members...
...On the other values, the agreement of any 248 THE COMMONWEAL July 7, 1926 three of the remaining members should be sufficient to obtain the assistance of the fund...
...an elusive beauty, and a voice of considerable range and Masefield is careless in detail and presents a nineteen-century variety coupled with excellent diction...
...This realization of the charming widow with whom the uncle had been in love...
...The cost of producing a play (up to the opening night) grounds of commercial possibilities...
...any real honesty of purpose a chance to move with greater freedom...
...the introduction of good wholesome food...
...In this way, on the law of averages, the fund orchestras...
...tical balance between the three main aspects of a play-its Although I am convinced from long observation that the failures ethics, its dramatic integrity, and its reasonable chances for among really good plays (by which I mean dramatically good) success...
...Odtaa strongly suggests that Masefield could of Mrs...
...York last season, about one-tenth were successful, and even In the first place, the play committee should represent a practhis was a slight improvement over the previous season...
...In the short story name after an earlier career some years ago as Perkins, and play, Rain, they were subjected to broad and harsh consuffers chiefly from the defect of an inevitable ending...
...Curtis Cooksey as the Toronto fortune- spacious days of the Elizabethans...
...On the ethical side, a veto runs from $10,000 to $25,000, and much higher in the case should be absolute...
...backing...
...Here again, usage of epical, biographical, and elliptical patterns has been any doubt as to the possibility of raising the fund should be detrimental to the development of the novel...
...She is, by way of com- city with all modern improvements, and as a climax practically parison, a Helen Chandler without the latter's ever-increasing starts an entirely new story interest before his overdue demonotony of voice and paucity of resource...
...tune to marry her, supplies, of course, the foregone conclusion Mr...
...occasionally graduates from the penny dreadful class in which Curiously enough, almost the best acting of the evening was it was conceived...
...ism of a righteous preacher fighting the futility of the East The story is simple enough-a man who inherits a fortune in terms of biblical wrath...
...If the play receives the approval of the committee, the trustees But that is as far as things progressed...
...Some critics stoutly maintain that the twenty-five cents each, the fund would be raised...
...The existence of a fund would not, of itself, prevent The Question Mark, by M. Jaeger...
...Weaver, who is the biographer of Herman Melare not even enough complications to make one wonder how ville, has again taken the missionaries for his subject...
...It is a glamourous picture hunter, George Graham with his crisp comedy as the family of that exuberant age set down with fidelity to detail...
...New York: and surely nothing is more effective in displacing poison than Brentano's...
...New York: The Macthe production of filthy plays, but it would offer to managers of millan Company...
...was ever accomplished by merely creating a vacuum...
...The recent meeting is hopeful for newer methods of novel writing...
...At least entertainment may be explained to the potential theatre-going two members of the committee should be trained play readers public...
...The Man from Toronto Of late the Protestant missionaries to the East have appeared T HIS rather tenuous comedy, revived under the present as new characters for fiction treatment...
...million dollars...
...this springs the temptation to present plays with special appeals, assembled for the organization meeting of the Church and calculated to draw the tired society woman and the eager Drama Association...
...The young lady assigned to tion...
...ciation may hope to get at the sensitive pocket nerve of the The net result of the meeting was an expression of keen theatre and exercise a constructive influence on the type of plays dissatisfaction with the trend of the stage today...
...It has a attend to the business details, the drawing of contracts, the commodity to sell, entertainment...
...It is good and useful, but it background to recognize dramatic and acting values when they does not strike to the root...
Vol. 4 • July 1926 • No. 9
