“Overtones”
Alice Gerstenberg, who dramatized _Alice in Wonderland_, wrote
_Overtones_, evidently as an experiment, and had it produced in New
York. Now it is crowding vaudeville houses. As an experiment only is it
important. Cyril Harcourt intends collaborating with Miss Gerstenberg to
produce a three-act play on the same lines: characters being followed by
their “real selves”, veiled, with voices confused. A Shaw play might be
done this way—it is a method effective for moralizing and bringing home
a point. But why would Darling Dora need an overtone or an undertone; or
Blanco Posnet or Fanny’s Father? If there is any reason for the dramatic
presentation of characters at all it is the drama of themselves—their
actions and their thoughts as opposed to those of others.... Imagine
Rebecca West being followed through three acts by a “real self”; or
Ulric Brendel—“... I am homesick for the mighty nothingness”.
“The New Manner”
(_Vague Questionings_)
It evidently means—this phrase—“that which is _accepted_ as new”....
There are signs of our dangerously settling down to flat brilliant
backgrounds, spots of vivid color, and much _mention_ of “important as
decoration”. It seems an unhealthy acquiescence.... “Is desire a thing
of nothing, that a five-years’ quest can make a parody of it? Your whole
life is not too long, and then only at the very end will some small atom
of what you have desired come to you.”—Gordon Craig in his _Art of the
Theatre_. It looks as if we are due for a period of the old, old,
three-walled room with the new, new, “new” color.... I don’t believe we
will find the future in Michael Carr’s butterfly proscenium and
moving-picture screen shadows; but, surely, it is not _The Man Who
Married a Dumb Wife_, or _Androcles and the Lion_, although Barker’s
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_ costumes are the most far-reaching
originalities yet seen. Nor will it be like _A Pair of Silk Stockings_,
_The Sabine Women_, _Overtones_, _The Charity that Began at Home_, _The
Taming of the Shrew_, nor Urban and his present enormous New York output
of “designs” and “follies”. Our only light seems to come from Gordon
Craig’s work in Florence. “In his work is the incalculable element; the
element that comes of itself and cannot be coaxed into coming”. Or from
Sam Hume’s enthusiasm over the “Dome”; Reinhardt, of course, has almost
acquired his permanent “angle of repose”—the newness of the American
stage being, in fact, the Reinhardt of yesterday. If I had my way, I’d
destroy all books about the theatre excepting those of Gordon Craig, for
inspiration, or those of Arthur Symons for appreciation.... Then,
perhaps, we should begin to understand the Theatre.