Communications

...Religious Lessons in Secular Drama, etc...

...Dreiser, "that meant my religion was gone...

...Second, what seemed to me a platitude in my letter—"The fact that not a single first-rate actor in America is attempting to draw audiences with Shakespeare is a commentary in a nutshell"—Mr...

...Though as I have said, whether good dramas are being written has nothing to do with the case tra la, I do notice that Bar-rie, Galsworthy, Shaw, Barker, et al., have just about stopped, and there are at the moment none in England to take their places...

...Walter Hampden has given up the road altogether, and temporarily even Shakespeare, for New York...

...TO the Editor:—Since you permitted Ernest F. Boddington to take as the basis of his article on National Drama Week the letter which I sent out in my capacity as chairman of the occasion, perhaps you will permit me to point out how he arrives at the conclusion that the motivation of the appeal is "very impulsive, not to say hysterical...

...Why did young Dreiser begin a literary chat about Carlyle in the confessional ? And how did the priest—unless he were a critical historical scholar—happen to give this young boy the excellent advice that he should learn history first from more reliable sources than Carlyle, Macaulay, and Michelet...

...one never knows what to expect...

...Incidentally, I may remark that Macaulay's Essays are taught in a number of Irish Catholic schools, and I know a Christian Brother who has a great admiration for Carlyle's French Revolution ; I must tell them of Theodore Dreiser's discovery...

...That a well-informed critic should not know that there are evils and absurdities in censorship or that the subject is somehow not to be discussed seems to me a mental limitation...

...and David Warfield who lost heaps of his own and Belasco's money with The Merchant of Venice, Warfield's only Shakespearean venture, has not acted in anything for some years...

...That is my point, not Mr...

...Fourth, Edwin Booth, continues your critic, was not affected by the "debauching commercial traffic" in the theatre...

...If I say that good apples are not selling well throughout the country, and a critic takes me to task by pointing out that good apples are being grown and sell fairly well in New York City, I refuse to be impressed...

...It is always so very interesting to listen to novelists and movie-stars and the like expounding philosophy and religion...

...when fine American plays like The Wisdom Tooth kick the bucket in Boston after two weeks out of New York— well, if your critic does not find "dramatic art perishing of neglect in America" or cannot see why my call is "doleful," at least, he should not conclude that I am hysterical...

...A. O'R...

...But for a New Yorker to say that the actors are "prospering" and not "begging" is not impulsive or hysterical...

...when Mr...

...when the Theatre Guild, dissatisfied with the management of its valuable properties on the road, turns for bookings to a concert impresario as a last resource...

...Boddington found that it served his charge of "hysteria" better by not quoting my substantiating figures...

...And that, "of course," would mean the end of paternal authority for her...

...George Kelly has, indeed, written two good plays that, by the way, have not known the crowded houses on the road that were the rule in Times Square...

...However, the same list suggests other safer topics like Use of Drama by the Church to Counteract its Misuse by the World...

...But a few queries remain...

...One more query or suggestion: As Mr...

...Frank Gillmore of the Actors' Equity Association, moved by the clamors of actors all about him, is hard put to discover a scheme of rotating three plays on a carefully elaborated circuit of selected cities and appeals to the Drama League to provide some kind of financial guarantee...

...Whether these two words are not rather appropriate for his own reasoning than for mine may be left for your readers to judge...

...Censorship, an Evasion of Moral Responsibility...

...Fifth, out of over sixty topics suggested by the Drama League for discussion and not as pronunciamenta, this calm critic pounces upon The Evils and Absurdities of Censorship and finds it "confusing...

...and Eugene O'Neill has stirred high-brows on Broadway when the theatre was as small as the Garrick, or the play was thought to be "sexy" like Desire Under the Elms, but have his plays ever made a successful tour...

...When actresses and actors like Jane Cowl, Laurette Taylor, Lionel Atwill, and Frank McGlynn are idle for months at a time...

...Boddington says is "all very impulsive," because it is an ungracious commentary on the "continuous efforts" of Walter Hampden, Jane Cowl, Rollo Peters, John Barrymore, and David Warfield...

...Of course," added Mr...

...Dreiser rather gives the show away when he quotes the unfortunate priest who was trying to educate him, as saying: "Of course, the Church is not trying to control your mind...

...In the confessional I told the priest I was reading Carlyle's French Revolution, and that I had to read some of Macaulay and Michelet...

...And has Mr...

...WHY THEODORE DREISER LOST THE FAITH Cambridge, Mass...

...And what has such paternal or educational advice got to do with "religion" ? And who told Mr...

...Seventh, if Mr...

...Elmer Kenyon, Chairman, National Drama Week, Drama League of America...

...Dreiser been so busy since he was seventeen that he has not had time to find out whether the really great stumbling-block to faith in Catholicism is lack of confidence in certain literary but shallow historians...

...John Barrymore has been in the movies for almost two years...

...it just is not true...

...So I repeat, the professional theatre up and down the land is perishing from neglect...

...Boddington knew something of logic, he would not make the mistake of thinking that because an issue is not in its presentation cluttered with irrelevancies, the issue itself may be challenged...

...the Church wants to advise you, to help you...

...Though I had asserted in proof of this fact, the municipal support of the theatre in Germany, Miss Le Gallienne "devoted a major part of her address" to a plea for such support in this country, a proposal that Mr...

...Dreiser, in which he expatiated on religion and things in general, in emulation of his fellow-novelist, H. G. Wells...

...Jane Cowl had been until a fortnight ago out of a play for months and her record is limited to Romeo and Juliet, unless you wish to include her failure in Antony and Cleopatra...

...Dreiser that the casual remarks or counsel of any individual are infallible decisions of the Church...

...In the same issue of The Commonweal, the editor says of the issues surrounding censorship that "no adequate solution has been found...

...First, my letter happened to confine itself in one page to pointing out that the "legitimate" theatre by and large in America is disappearing, little old New York to the contrary notwithstanding...

...Instead of being encouraged to grow, the artist has eternally to beg 'please let me do something' . . ." (New York Times, February 8...

...as an exclamation to garnish his future newspaper pronouncements on "religion...

...Of course...

...What impertinence to try to advise or help Theodore Dreiser (aetatis seventeen...

...Your contributor takes this as a "grudging their feed to the animals at the zoo," but I venture to think not—only that we love the zoo less and the theatre more...

...Let us see what your contributor's idea of "continuous efforts" is...

...Miss Le Gallienne, also, is evidently hysterical for she says, "The American system aims only to get instead of to give and the theatre is not an integral part of national life as it is in most parts of Europe...

...Boddington gratuitously assumes I favor for America...

...None of these actors has appeared in Shakespeare this season...

...If a provincial said as much, he might conceivably be forgiven, but with many road theatres closing for good and others closing for weeks at a time, even from the hinterland, The Commonweal should demand accurate information...

...That amateurs are flourishing or even that everybody is a better actor than were the old-timers are pleasant things to say, but not to the point...

...If my daughter, at the age of seventeen, told me she was reading Mr...

...438 Is it not curious that after this critic wrote of the lofty independence of the actor in our day, Miss Eva Le Gallienne in your Town Hall happened to declare, on the contrary, that the dependence of the actor drives him to threats to throw himself out of the window...

...Sixth, "They [the actors] are not perishing, they are prospering ; they are not begging, they are giving...

...TO the Editor:—The Boston Transcript of January 29 published a full-page interview with Mr...

...Dreiser's "religion" is "gone," would it not be more appropriate—not to speak of its being more in good taste—that he should not use "Jesus...

...Boddington's...

...Rollo Peters simply does not count...

...in every city of Germany, the theatre ranks with the schools as a jealously guarded interest of the community as a whole...

...Dreiser's novels, I, being old-fashioned, would object...

...He objected...

...Third, "While in America zoos for the maintenance of queer animals regularly receive municipal appropriations, the theatre is left to debauching commercial traffic...

...Exactly, he wasn't...

...He would do better to explain why what he calls the "courageous efforts of Walter Hampden" are shunted to meagre support uptown that the New York stage may be given over to an orgy of filth...

...My interest was aroused by this statement: "I made my last confession when I was seventeen...

...namely, that the 1,500 legitimate theatres of before the war have dwindled to 674...