achieving Broadway productions—the Fireside Theater audience is steadily
recruited. If there has existed a prejudice against reading plays, it
is melting. The mere force of conditions would tend to destroy such a
prejudice. The path to Broadway becomes steadily more difficult and the
path away from Broadway narrower—all because it costs too much to produce
a play on Broadway, and far too much to take the play, once so produced,
on the road. Soon the Broadway theater will survive as the horse
survives; and Broadway productions, inspired by the same motives as the
production of horse races, will be nobly upheld by the same justificatory
excuse—it will be argued that they improve the breed of plays.
It does no harm to have a few horse shows or to have a few Broadway
productions; but the truth must be stated that the theater in America
no longer depends upon the amusement business in the vicinity of
Forty-second Street. To an extent never before equaled, plays are now
published in America regardless of their production; are bought and read;
are read aloud for an exceptional evening’s entertainment; and are acted
under license, and with payment of very moderate fees, by people to whom
a play is a play and not a pair of high-priced tickets.
For amateur actors, many of them amazingly capable, there are now
available plays of every length and of every conceivable variety of type,
settings, and casts; of extreme, moderate and very slight demands upon
the actors’ skill; tragic, comedic, farcical. And for readers of plays
there are certain immutable advantages that have been pointed out before
but will bear stressing again, such as that the performance always begins
on time, and at _your_ chosen time, and that the actors, being your own
creatures, are always ideal.
I shall try to speak first of some anthologies of plays, then of plays by
individual authors, and finally of a few books about the drama and the
theater.
ii
First I would put Montrose J. Moses’s ample works. His _Representative
British Dramas: Victorian and Modern_ is not only a complete history of
the British stage, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to 1914;
it presents the complete texts of twenty-one English and Irish plays
superbly representative of its century. _Representative Continental
Dramas: Revolutionary and Transitional_ does much the same thing for
Europe as a whole. Eight European countries are represented in this
anthology, which contains the complete texts of fifteen plays, with a
general survey of the development of Continental drama and individual
bibliographies. But the greatest demand is for anthologies of one-act
plays; a demand richly met by the following standard works:
_Representative One-Act Plays by American Authors_, compiled by Margaret
G. Mayorga, contains the complete texts of twenty-four, all of which have
been produced in Little Theaters. Among the dramatists included are
Percy Mackaye, Stuart Walker, Jeannette Marks, George Middleton, Susan
Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, and Beulah Marie Dix.
_Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays_ edited by Frank Shay and Pierre
Loving, is an international selection of astonishing variety and
exceptional merit.
_Twenty Contemporary One-Act Plays—American_, edited by Frank Shay, is an
anthology which affords variety of choice for acting and ample variety
for the reader.
Barrett H. Clark’s _Representative One-Act Plays by British and Irish
Authors_ contains complete texts of twenty one-act plays. Some of the
authors are Pinero, Jones, Arnold Bennett, Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Granville
Barker and Lord Dunsany. Mr. Moses is the compiler of _Representative
One-Act Plays by Continental Authors_. Maeterlinck, Arthur Schnitzler,
Strindberg, Andreyev, Franz Wedekind, Sudermann, von Hofmannsthal,
Lavedan are some of the playwrights whose work is included; and the book
is equipped with bibliographies.
Frank Shay is the compiler of _Twenty-Five Short Plays: International_,
in which is much exotic work—plays from Bengal and Burma, China and
Japan and Uruguay, as well as from countries with whose drama we have
more contact. But as an example of Mr. Shay’s selections we may note,
from among the writers whose work is fairly familiar, that Austria is
represented by a Schnitzler piece, Italy by one of Robert Bracco’s
comedies, Hungary by Lajos Biro’s “The Bridegroom,” Russia by an example
of Chekhov and Spain by Echegaray.
I may at this point advantageously call attention to Mr. Shay’s _One
Thousand and One Plays for the Little Theatre_, and his new _One Thousand
and One Longer Plays_—not anthologies, but exhaustive lists. The plays
are listed alphabetically by authors and by organizations, and the title,
nature of the work, number of men and women characters, publisher, and
price of each play is given.
Certain other books, though offering a number of one-act plays, have too
few inclusions to be described as anthologies. Such are _One-Act Plays
from the Yiddish_, translated by Etta Block and presenting half a dozen
effective pieces; _Three Modern Japanese Plays_, translated by Yozan
T. Iwasaki and Glenn Hughes, and showing the direct result of Western
influences on the Japanese theatre; and _Double Demon and Other One-Act
Plays_, by A. P. Herbert and others, one of the British Drama League
series.
Colin Campbell Clements, whose _Plays for a Folding Theatre_ is known
to most amateurs, has a new book this season called _Plays for Pagans_,
containing five entertaining short plays, all easy of stage production.
Another such group is to be found in _Garden Varieties_, by Kenyon
Nicholson, six plays, most of them farcical and amusing.
Certain other one-act plays I shall speak of later in this chapter. But
the record of excellent anthologies is not yet completed. _A Treasury
of Plays for Children_, by Mr. Moses, provides fourteen dramas with the
abundance of incident and action which young people demand but with
considerable literary merit besides. Mr. Shay, again, is the compiler of
_A Treasury of Plays for Women_, eighteen in all, requiring only women to
cast or containing only such male characters as may easily be enacted by
women; and also of _A Treasury of Plays for Men_, twenty-one altogether,
which men may stage without feminine help. _A Treasury of Plays for
Men_ also offers a working library list for the Little Theater and a
bibliography of other anthologies.
ii
In coming to the work of individual playwrights, I am afraid the method
of conscientious enumeration must to a great extent go on. Granville
Barker’s work is almost too well-known to require special comment.
His plays, some one of which is almost certain to be found in any
comprehensive anthology, are published in seven volumes, each a single
drama except the _Three Short Plays_. Anatol, to be sure, is simply Mr.
Barker’s splendid version of Arthur Schnitzler’s gay satire on a gilded
youth of Vienna. Probably _Waste_, at once intimate in its discussions
and intensely serious, is the best-known drama by Barker; but _The
Madras House_, with its humors of feminine psychology, and _The Voysey
Inheritance_, that fine study of middle-class English family life, are
both popular. The others are _The Marrying of Ann Leete_, at once a
comedy and a satire, and the three-act play called _The Secret Life_, a
play of present-day England touched with philosophy and mysticism and
occasional cynicism, but of the same distinctive quality as Barker’s
other work.
Three plays by Lewis Beach have been published. _A Square Peg_ presents
the tragic results of a mother’s unflinching rule of her family. _The
Goose Hangs High_ is a comedy of family loyalty and affection which
brings the younger generation face to face with its elders; it has been
a success of the last New York season. But the one to which I want to
direct attention especially is _Ann Vroome_, a play in seven scenes
giving the story of a girl’s long wait for happiness when she postpones
marriage to care for her parents. This play has a very fine acceleration
of dramatic interest, of emotional intensity; and its literary quality
is of a high order. It is evident that Mr. Beach does nothing badly.
The history of Owen Davis has been told many times, but I do not suppose
its impression of the extraordinary is ever lessened. He wrote, for
years, melodramas of the “Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model” order; I am
by no means sure he did not write “Nellie.” In those days he supplied
the theaters of the Bowery and other avenues no better as to art if less
notorious. It should be said that however cheap were these works, they
were infinitely more respectable and of a better moral character than
some pretentious affairs playing uptown. Mr. Davis had two reasonable
purposes—to learn play writing and to make necessary money. When he
had accomplished both, being still a young man, he turned to work of a
different description. His play, _The Detour_ (1921), the story of a
woman’s never-dying aspiration and hope, was one of the finest things
of its season. Clear-cut, dramatic, with comedy and pathos interwoven,
it depicted mental and spiritual force pitted against solely material
ambition in a way that those who saw or read it did not forget. The
evidence was clear that a new American dramatist of the first rank had
been born. _Icebound_ (1922), had immediate attention and very marked
critical praise, crowned by the award to it of the Pulitzer Prize by
Columbia University as the best American play of the year.
The most successful American playwright of his day, Clyde Fitch was also
one of the ablest. The Memorial Edition of the _Plays of Clyde Fitch_,
edited, with introductions, by Montrose J. Moses and Virginia Gerson, and
published in four volumes is a gallant and important affair. The edition
is definitive and contains three plays that were never before in print,
“The Woman in the Case,” “Lovers’ Lane,” and that most important of the
Fitch plays, “The City.” The fourth volume of this edition contains Mr.
Fitch’s address on “The Play and the Public.”[78]
The four volumes of _Representative Plays by Henry Arthur Jones_, edited,
with historical, biographical, and critical introductions, by Clayton
Hamilton, assemble in a splendid library edition the most interesting
work of the British dramatist. Henry Arthur Jones wrote some sixty or
seventy plays, printed mainly in pamphlet form—“scrips”—for the use,
primarily, of actors, professional and amateur. These Mr. Hamilton
sifted, at the same time making an effort to indicate the range and
variety of Jones’s work. As a consequence, _Representative Plays_ opens
with a celebrated old-time melodrama, “The Silver King,” and illustrates
the stages in the author’s progress until he arrived, in the composition
of “The Liars,” at a really great accomplishment as a master of modern
English comedy. Mr. Hamilton’s introductions carry the reader’s attention
from play to play along a continuous current of historical, biographical
and critical comment. Probably the best-known inclusions are the plays in
the third volume: “Michael and His Lost Angel,” “The Liars,” “Mrs. Dane’s
Defence,” and “The Hypocrites.”
Of Cosmo Hamilton’s _Four Plays_ I have already made mention[79] and
perhaps I should have spoken of Percival Wilde when dealing with
one-act plays. Mr. Wilde’s work is itself an anthology of the one-act
play. This New Yorker was for a while in the banking business; on the
publication of his first story he received so many requests to allow its
dramatization that he thought he would investigate the drama himself.
That was not more than a dozen years ago; yet now Percival Wilde is
commonly said to have had more plays produced—or rather, to have had a
greater number of productions—in American Little Theaters than any other
playwright.
His books to date (of this sort) are five. _Eight Comedies for Little
Theatres_ contains “The Previous Engagement,” “The Dyspeptic Ogre,”
“Catesby,” “The Sequel,” “In the Net,” “His Return,” “The Embryo,” and “A
Wonderful Woman.” Then there are his other collections—_Dawn, and Other
One-Act Plays of Life Today_ (six), _A Question of Morality, and Other
Plays_ (five), and _The Unseen Host, and Other War Plays_ (five), and
_The Inn of Discontent and Other Fantastic Plays_ (five).
George Kelly, a young American born in a suburb of Philadelphia, had
the daring to satirize the Little Theater movement in America in “The
Torch-Bearers,” which had a New York success. In this past season his
play, _The Show-Off_, has not only been a memorable success but has
perhaps had more unqualified praise than any drama in years. “I might as
well begin boldly and say that _The Show-Off_ is the best comedy which
has yet been written by an American,” writes Heywood Broun in his preface
to the published play; and this does not much exaggerate the note of the
general chorus. The committee named to recommend a play for the award of
the annual Pulitzer Prize selected _The Show-Off_; and the overruling
of their choice by the Columbia University authorities was the subject
of considerable controversy not entirely free from indignant feeling.
What is this play? “A transcript of life, in three acts,” the titlepage
truthfully calls it. The chief character, Aubrey Piper, liar, braggart,
egoist, is almost dreadfully real. It is perhaps possible, however
depressing, to regard him as a symbol of all mankind, bringing us to
realize the toughness of human fiber, as Mr. Broun suggests. But it seems
to me much more likely that the play’s great merit and supreme interest
lies in another point that Mr. Broun makes: there is no development
of character in Aubrey, but only in ourselves, the audience, who come
to know him progressively better, and finally to know him to the last
inescapable dreg. Most critics have tended, I think, to overlook the
splendid characterization of Mrs. Fisher, Aubrey’s perspicacious and
unrelenting mother-in-law. The play is too true for satire, too serious
for comedy, too humanly diverting for tears. It is certainly not to be
missed.
_The Lilies of the Field_, a comedy by John Hastings Turner, author of
several novels, including that very engaging story, _Simple Souls_, is
one of the British Drama League series and will probably have a New
York production this season. The desire of twin daughters of an English
village clergyman to become the wives of young men met in London—young
men who toil not, neither do they spin except at dances—produces the
complications, which are both entertaining and somewhat satirical. Of
the other British Drama League plays, _The Prince_, by Gwen John, deals
with Queen Elizabeth, and is “a study of character, based on contemporary
evidence,” while Laurence Binyon’s _Ayuli_ is drama in verse, telling
a picturesque story of Eastern Asia. Mr. Binyon has made studies of
Oriental art and his drama is of quite exceptional literary quality.
Of novel interest is _The Sea Woman’s Cloak and November Eve_, a volume
containing two plays by the American writer, Amelie Rives (Princess
Troubetzkoy), that are as Irish as work by Lady Gregory, Yeats, or J.
M. Synge. “The Sea Woman’s Cloak” is based on an old legend of Ganore’s
mating with a mortal; “November Eve” tells how Ilva, who is fairy-struck,
saves a soul the godly folk won’t risk their own souls to save.
_Dragon’s Glory_, a play in four scenes by Gertrude Knevels, is based on
an old Chinese legend, and makes very amusing reading and a most actable
comedy. Yow Chow has purchased the finest coffin in China (“Dragon’s
Glory”) and the action of the piece centers about this treasure, in which
the estimable Yow Chow reposes until a crisis which is the climax of the
play.
The two series known respectively as the Modern Series and the Little
Theatre Series consist of plays published in pamphlet form at a low
price for the convenience of amateur theatrical organizations. Included
in these series are separate plays by such authors as Booth Tarkington,
Christopher Morley, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eugene O’Neill, Stuart
Walker, Floyd Dell, Rupert Brooke, and others, to a present total
of thirty titles. The Modern Series, edited by Frank Shay, has two
particularly striking new titles in _Lord Byron_ and _Autumn_.
_Lord Byron_, a play in seven scenes by Maurice Ferber, is of the genre
of Drinkwater’s _Abraham Lincoln_ and Mr. Eaton’s and Mr. Carb’s _Queen
Victoria_. Byron is one of the most dramatic of the possible subjects for
a biographical play, and Mr. Ferber’s work will undoubtedly be frequently
staged and very much read at this time of the Byron centenary.
_Autumn_, in four acts, by Ilya Surguchev, translated by David A.
Modell, is the picture of jealousy between a young wife and an adopted
daughter. “This is one of the strongest plays I have ever read,” says
Frank Shay. It is our first introduction to the work of the Russian
author and part of its novelty consists in the last act, which “achieves
a monotony that is real and genuine. It does not bring husband and wife
together in happiness, but shows that there is nothing else for them to
do but to go on.”
But the other new titles in the Modern Series deserve brief mention.
_Words and Thoughts_, by Don Marquis, presents John and Mary Speaker,
who utter the usual banalities of the world, and John and Mary Thinker,
who utter their true and less pleasant thoughts. John L. Balderston’s _A
Morality Play for the Leisure Class_ pictures a rich collector’s boredom
in heaven when he finds that his treasures there have no monetary value.
There is an O. Henry twist to the ending. Walter McClellan’s _The Delta
Wife_ is a genre play of the Mississippi River mouth, in type resembling
_Hell-Bent fer Heaven_. _The Lion’s Mouth_, by George Madden Martin and
Harriet L. Kennedy, deals with the relations of blacks and whites. A
white doctor ignores a black child in his efforts to save a white baby.
An old mammy has an invaluable herb cure; but finding that the doctor
cares nothing for her grandson’s life, she refuses to save the white
infant. Wilbur Daniel Steele’s _The Giant’s Stair_ is a study in mood
and atmosphere, like many of his short stories. Before the play opens a
man has been murdered. A terrific storm is raging. The scene is between
the widow and her demented sister and the sheriff. _Action!_ by Holland
Hudson is a swift-moving, melodramatic comedy. The son of a silk dealer
returns from selling airplanes to protest that the life of a silk
salesman is dull. His objections are interrupted by the entry of two
silk loft burglars and two bootleggers—followed by Federal officers and
policemen with drawn weapons.
The new titles in the Little Theatre Series, edited by Grace Adams,
include Edna St. Vincent Millay’s _Aria da Capo_ and her _The Lamp and
the Bell_.
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s work is known throughout America. _The Lamp and
the Bell_, a Shakespearean play written for a Vassar College anniversary,
has for its theme woman’s friendship, and is very nearly unique among
compositions for an occasion in having solid literary and dramatic merit.
Its fresh, vigorous, creative quality is enriched by some lovely lyrical
inclusions. _Aria da Capo_, Miss Millay’s bitterly ironic, beautiful and
interesting one-act fantasy, has been played, one is tempted to believe,
everywhere; and will for years be played again and again. No contemporary
Pierrot and Columbine composition excels it, if, indeed, any matches it.
Mary MacMillen’s _Pan or Pierrot_ is a play for children, to be acted out
of doors. And I must again call attention to John Farrar’s charming plays
for children in _The Magic Sea Shell_.
iii
Books about the theater are various, of course, ranging from æsthetic
studies down to the most practical handbook for amateurs. Of the latter,
I should certainly put first Barrett H. Clark’s _How to Produce Amateur
Plays_, now in a new and revised edition. This manual is as nearly
indispensable to amateur actors as anything can be. It tells how to
choose a play, how to organize, the principles of casting, and the
methods of rehearsing. It gives very necessary information about the
stage itself, lighting, scenery and costumes, and makeup. There is also a
list of good amateur plays and information about copyright and royalty.
Another book that will be particularly welcomed by schools and social
organizations is Claude Merton Wise’s _Dramatics for School and
Community_, which covers much the same fields as Mr. Clark’s work.
I have already spoken of Percival Wilde’s astonishing success as an
author of one-act plays; it makes his book on _The Craftsmanship of the
One-Act Play_ the last word on the subject. But the special value of
Mr. Wilde’s book is that it considers everything having to do with the
construction of the one-act play from the point of view of the stage
director as well as that of the author.
Granville Barker’s _The Exemplary Theatre_, though by one of the
best-known men of the group interested in and influencing modern dramatic
theory and esthetics, is preëminently a practical book. It considers the
theater as a civic institution and has a valuable chapter on the inner
and outer organization of a repertory theater; but the chapters on a
director’s duties, choosing the best plays, training the company, scenery
and lighting, and audiences are of widespread applicability.
A mention of books about the theater is fated to omit many excellent
volumes, but can scarcely fail to include a series of books which give
a complete circumspection of contemporary drama. The most recent volume
in the series is _The Contemporary Drama of Russia_, by Leo Wiener,
professor of Slavic languages and literature at Harvard. This entirely
new study is likely to create a commotion, for it belies utterly the
conclusions generally arrived at as to the relative value of the work
of such playwrights as Chekhov, Gorki, Andreyev, Solugub, Evreinov and
others, and it brings into prominence many names never heard of before
outside of Russia. Its picture of the origin and development of the
Moscow Art Theater is not the one of popular legend, and should probably
be narrowly compared with that given by Constantin Stanislavsky in his
_My Life in Art_[80] and with other accounts. Professor Wiener has
relied, however, upon letters, theatrical annals, and other contemporary
records. His bibliographies contain fairly full accounts of plays from
Ostrovski to the present, lists of books and articles on the contemporary
Russian drama, and lists of all English translations of plays.
_The Contemporary Drama of England_, by Thomas H. Dickinson, covers
adequately the history of the English stage since 1866. Ernest Boyd’s
_The Contemporary Drama of Ireland_ presents the Irish literary movement
and the work of Irish dramatists. _The Contemporary Drama of Italy_, by
Lander MacClintock, traces the development of the modern Italian theater
from its inception down to the present day, and has interesting chapters
on Gabriele d’Annunzio and the writers now popular in Italy. Frank W.
Chandler’s _The Contemporary Drama of France_, a longer work than the
three preceding, presents a survey and interpretation of French drama for
three decades, from the opening of the Theatre-Libre of Antoine to the
conclusion of the world war.
16. A Reasonable View of Michael Arlen
i
There is a book called _These Charming People_. In making this statement
I pause for an uncertain time. It is necessary to allow a little interval
for readers—quite as necessary as it is for the orator to give his
audience its innings. Readers do not create the same interruption for a
writer, and that is in itself a pity. That fact defeats much writing; for
the writer has rushed on before the reader’s mind has had a chance to
seethe a little and settle, passing on to a comparatively calm acceptance
of the next assertion.
But you can take anybody’s word for _These Charming People_—anybody’s,
that is, who has read it; and the number of persons who have read it
is very large and increases steadily. The truth is, this book and its
author have become fashionable; and when a book and an author have become
fashionable, some persons will go to any length. Now it is known that
Michael Arlen is the author of _These Charming People_, but who knows who
Michael Arlen may be? Is there a View of Michael Arlen? In the favorite
adjective of one of Mr. Arlen’s characters, is there a reasonable view of
the presumptively charming person?
Yes.