David and Goliath
TNCREASINGLY every year, the newspapers devote •'• more space to the annual Little Theatre tournament. The critics now attend the performances, and find in the efforts of these devoted groups...
...It has, however, through a combination of circumstances, served another very important purpose...
...To certain types of people, the non-existence of a good commercial theatre in a small city or town would offer a glorious excuse for parading in costume...
...The public response to them has often been so surprising as to force their promotion to larger commercial theatres, where they have thrived and triumphed even in dollar success over the current commercial offerings...
...Its use should never be limited to those who, by chance or choice, have not found in the Christian tradition the finest source of drama...
...Above all, they should provide a means of testing the worth of such plays before mixed audiences...
...Many notable plays of the last decade—In fact, many of the most notable— have first appeared on the stages of Little Theatres, acted by trained groups of semi-professionals, and granted stage settings of unusual artistic merit...
...The Little Theatre, then, has grown up quite as much to meet the needs of audiences as to provide outlets for amateur actors and budding playwrights, and it Is only when we recognize this fully) and frankly that we see this new movement in its just proportions...
...But this incentive would perish of its own Ineptitude If there were nothing deeper In the movement than personal exhibitionism...
...It has provided an inexpensive and quite competent medium for bringing to public attention types of plays that would otherwise rarely see the light...
...In many parishes throughout the country, there are already dramatic societies whose efforts, if directed a little more specifically to this end, would compare most favorably with the average Little Theatre performance...
...For the Little Theatre as an American institution (American by adoption, be it added) Is slowly looming as a David before the commercial Goliath of Broadway...
...To mention but one notable instance, there is the Dramatic Union of the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes in New York City, where, under the guiding inspiration of Monsignor McMahon, both one-act and full-length plays are given throughout the year with distinction and appreciable professional feeling...
...The Little Theatre, as understood today, is a definite medium of creative effort, growing up from the soil to meet the full-throated demand for entertainment on the part of human beings who refuse to be satisfied forever with the half-loaf of the movies...
...The socalled "dramatic instinct" would inevitably seek some such outlet as this in a country so vast as ours, and so poorly served by road companies...
...Organizations of this sort should take part in the Little Theatre tournament...
...The critics now attend the performances, and find in the efforts of these devoted groups from all over the country, and even from abroad, something which they can no longer discard with a smile or the toplofty patronage of the/ professional viewing the work of the amateur...
...The Little Theatre idea is an instrument peculiarly of this day and time...
...What with radio giving us sound without...
...sight, and the movies giving us sight without sound, the need of that one complete form of entertainment which Is the theatre becomes Imperative...
...No less than fifty "plays with a Catholic air," to use its own modest recommendation, have already been produced by this single group...
...Little Theatres do not require huge endowments...
...They should enter the lists, instead of confining their efforts to purely local entertainment...
...Practical Stage Work, full of hints for what and how to produce within the resources of small theatres...
...They should produce original plays, as well as those already commercially tested...
...In its right perspective, the Little Theatre stands for considerably more than the desire of amateurs to exhibit themselves before admiring friends...
...As an instance of what good work can be done in centres remote from metropolitan stimulus, we might mention the Catholic Dramatic Company and Guild, founded by Father Matthias Helfen, of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, with which such bodies as the Saint Cecilia Players are affiliated^ and which publishes a brisk little monthly...
...This undisputed fact should have an important bearing on Catholic efforts to improve the general stand ards of the stage...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 4
