SNAPSHOTS
Middlelon, George
SNAPSHOTS : By George Middlelon LONDON. THERE are so many things one might write about coming back to this old city. The galleries have all their old fascination and one continually discovers new...
...Life, on that hillside, seemed so far away from the industrial age that beckoned as a passing train, far in the distance screeched its warning...
...It was a pleasure to tbink, too, that I might see once more the old town where half of England went to school...
...The cast is drawn from about sixty people in the neighborhood...
...They try to give two performances free so every one may com...
...At first we did our plays in the recreation Hall in the village of Boar's Head, a half mile away...
...Then I motored out at the appointed hour to the poet's lovely house...
...During the winter, however, they rehearse three evenings) a week, which adds to the communal interest...
...There we lunched and talked and he immediately signed with the Dramatists as I had hoped...
...I came here to see the British dramatists for our Dramatists' Guild...
...it had its 100th birthday in 1926...
...to acquaint them with our objects and to urge them to join...
...But all this about him did seem so alive and so useful...
...It was a lovely interlude in a busy life...
...Brekke Trail-'- er Guide Co., Minneapolis, Minn...
...The plays are always poetic dramas...
...I had met him years before in America and he admires rny brother's verse and so we have kept in touch...
...I met old friends again and new acquaintances...
...Little work can be done in the summer time as so many of them work in the fields...
...The lights were simple but adoc...
...I have been highly successful and whatever labour was involved was eased by the charm and courtesy with which I was met...
...He seldom comes to London but graciously invited me to lunch with him...
...This is just a note on a visit I had with John Masefield...
...It is surprising how instinctively they scan and find the rhythm...
...Masefield and soma friends...
...so I started this little theatre here...
...It was not very large...
...In 1880, trout fry was planted...
...I should like to write something of Shaw and Pinero and Barrie among others, but my space will not permit...
...The great English poet lives Ave miles outside of Oxford...
...Here a half dozen plays a year are rehearsed and performed...
...Our talk drifted to the theatre and to my astonishment I found he had a little theatre right on his own grounds...
...The rose is still fresh before me as...
...The tree is still in a thriving condition...
...Once, he admitted he played King Lear on three days' notice...
...I took an early train so I might have an hour in the old Cathedral, 30 interesting from an architectural point of view because of its peculiar arches and concealed triforium...
...As I walked to catch my bus, he gave me a rose from his garden and waved me a farewell...
...I asked him further about the speech...
...Here, too, was a living effort to attain beauty which the poet himself had so often caught in his exquisite and moving verse...
...The lake is 2,000 feet deep...
...Even when they may not know the meaning of the word or ever heard it pronounced before, the flow of the line gives them the proper cadence and swing...
...The admission fees amount to less than a dollar for the best seats and often the company...
...On it is a plate stating that it was brought from London, England in 1826...
...and the audience room could hold a hundred or so...
...He seemed so real, so sincere and so fine...
...The costumes are made by his daughter, and his wife has tended more or less to certain business aspects...
...I thought of his marvelous poems about the sea and all those other human problems he has so externalized in lovely verbal garments...
...of the people and whether they took naturally, to verse...
...At Vancouver barracks, Washington state, is the oldest apple tree in the west...
...Masefield has in some instances, made the translations into verse including the great French elaasics...
...Every spare moment I have had I have taken in the various museums, for one's capacity visually is limited and ony a few hours each day finds the apperceptions fresh...
...There is no thought of financial profit though they strive to earn the expenses...
...Recently, he made a version of Tristan which had, in addition, three weeks production in London...
...I write of him and his country players, "who have no name," as he said when I asked what they were called...
...It seemed odd that, living within only six miles of a great university town, the people knew so little about the real poetic drama...
...I felt I had to do something to bring poetic drama back to the people...
...It has no inlet or outlet and formerly contained no fish...
...Masefield himself directs and on several occasions acts himself...
...I thought over it as the spires of Oxford came into sight over the hill...
...The galleries have all their old fascination and one continually discovers new beauties or recalls those previously enjoyed...
...Crater lake, in Oregon, is believed to l>e all that remains of a tremendous volcano tSat occupied the site in pre-hi.storic days and which the geologists have named "Mount Mazama.'' It was 16,000 feet high, they say, but one day it collapsed, leaving Crater lake some 6,000 feet up...
...As we chatted I could not help but feel the charm of the place as personified in the poet's sweet simplicity...
...The theatre itself was built by Mr...
...For a dozen years it was supposed that these had died, when, suddenly, Crater lake developed fine trout fishing...
...Somehow poets always seem to me to be living in a make-believe world unattached to the environed realities...
...SALESMEN—To sell to dealers...
...but it had a stage and a balcony with appropriate dresf - - room, etc...
...travels to nearby villages...
...I questioned him further as we walked out to the little building I had not noticed before...
Vol. 19 • July 1927 • No. 7
