order). And I. It is melody. I feel the waves.
THIRD PRIEST (signing in the direction of the organist). There is the
musician. He is arranging something. And here is a very present reminder
of one of our earthly stupidities. We worshiped the forerunner of that
in our day. (He motions to the church cat who strolls by with great
dignity. They smile).
THE CAT (surveying them with indifferent eyes). At least I am alive.
FIRST PRIEST (a master of astrology). Small comfort. You will be dead
within the year. I see the rock that ends you. Then no more airs for
you.
THE MONK OF THE THEBAID (to himself). This is a religious
edifice—heavily material and of small pomp—christian, possibly. That
spirit yonder (he surveys the minister of St. Giles) was also a priest
of sorts, I take it, and these three Egyptians—how they strut! They give
themselves airs because of the thin memory of them and of their rites
that endures in the world.
THE MINISTER OF ST. GILES (surveying the monk). A sombre flagellant. I
wonder has he outgrown his earthly illusion. (He approaches). Brother,
do I not meet an emancipated spirit?
THE MONK. You do. Centuries of observation have taught me what earthly
search could not. I smile at the folly of this. (He waves an inclusive
hand about him).
THE MINISTER. And I, I also—though I was of stern faith in my day, and
of this very creed—even now I suspect some discoverable power worthy of
worship. My mere persistence causes me to wonder though it does not
explain itself.
THE MONK. Nor does mine to me, nor the persistence of their seeming
reality to them. (He points through the transparent walls of the church
to where outside moving streams of shadows—automobiles, belated wagons,
and pedestrians are to be seen—and to the lovers). Yet there is no
answer. They have their faith, futile as it is. A greater darkness has
fallen on you and me. Endless persistence for us if we must, let us say,
but merging at last into what?
THE MINISTER. And when I died I imagined I should meet my maker face to
face.
THE MONK (smiling). And I the same. And they,—(he nods toward the
Egyptians),—their gods were as real to them,—shadows all, of the
unknowable.
THE ORGANIST (plunging into the sub-theme which speedily dies off into
unfathomable mysteries of dark notes and tones). I wonder if I’m boring
them by this heavy stuff. Still what do I care. There are only four.
(Nevertheless he fuses the Grail motif to the dance of the flower
maidens).
THE BOY. Isn’t it lovely!
THE GIRL. Perfect!
THE ORGANIST. Lovely and very difficult. These pedals are working rather
stiffly,—and that automobile has to honk just now. (He fingers lightly
three notes of a major key indicative of woodland echoes and faint bird
notes. Re-enter the barrel house bum who is seeking anything that will
amuse him).
THE BUM. Still playing! And there are those two old stuffs of women. Not
an idea between ’em. (He turns to go but catches sight of_ _the monk and
the Egyptians. Pauses, and then turns back).
THE MONK. Soothing harmonies these! More strange combinations, the
reason for which we cannot guess, the joy and beauty of which we know. I
find earthly harmonies very grateful. But then, why?
(He and the priest forget their quondam materiality for a moment and
disappear from sight; recovering themselves as shadows only by
thinking).
THE BUM (staring interrogatively and irritatingly at the monk and the
Egyptians, who, however, pay not the slightest attention to him). You
thought you knew somepin’ when you were alive, didn’jah? You thought you
were smart, huh? You thought you’d find out somepin’ when yuh died, huh?
Well, yuh got fooled didn’jah? You’re like all the other stuffs that
walk about and think they know a lot. Yuh got left. Har! Har! Har! (He
chortles vibrantly). I know as much as you fellers, and I’ve only been
dead a dozen years. There aint no answer! Har! Har! Har! There aint no
answer! An’ here you are floatin’ aroun’ in them things! (He indicates
their dress). Oh, ho, ho ho! (He grins maliciously and executes a crude
clog step).
THE MONK (repugnantly and pulling his cowl aside). Away, vile
creature—unregenerate soul! Has even the nothingness of materiality
taught you nothing?
THE BUM (straightening up and leering). Who’s vile? What’s vile? (He
thinks to become obstreperous but recalling his nothingness grins
contemptuously). You think you’re still a monk, don’cha? You think
you’re good—better’n anybody else. Whatcha got to be good about? Oh ho,
ho, ho, ho! Ah har, har, har, har! He thinks he’s still a monk—
FIRST EGYPTIAN (to the monk sympathetically). Come away, friend. Leave
him to his illusions.
SECOND EGYPTIAN. Time alone can point out the folly of his mood.
THE MINISTER OF ST. GILES (drawing near and scowling at the Bum). Out,
sot.
THE BUM (defiantly and yet indifferently). Who’s a sot? An’ where’s out?
Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho!
THE ORGANIST (passing into the finale). And this is even more beautiful.
It suggests graves and shrines—and fawns dancing. But I don’t propose to
play long for four people.
(A troup of fawns and nymphs dance in, pursuing and eluding each
other. The six Hama-dryads return, weaving and turning in diaphanous
line. A passing cloud of hags and wastrels, the worst of the earth
lovers, enticed by the gaiety of sound, enter and fill the arches
and the vacant spaces for the moment, skipping about in wild
hilarity. The Bum joins them, dancing deliriously. Persistances
of fish and birds and animals, attracted by the rhythm which is
both colour and harmony to them, turn and weave among the others.
Ancient and new dead of every clime, enamored of the earth life
and wandering idly, enter. A tired pedestrian of forty, an
architect, strolling for the air and hearing the melody, enters.
After him come spirits of the streets—a doctor and two artisans,
newly dead, wondering at the sound).
THE MINISTER OF ST. GILES (noting the flood of hags and wastrels). And
these are horrible presences! Succubi! Will they never get enough of
materiality?
THE MONK. In my day the Thebaid was alive with them—the scum of Rome and
Alexandria, annoying us holy men at our devotions.
THE MINISTER. Do you still identify yourself with earthly beliefs?
THE MONK. A phase! A phase! In the presence and thought of materiality I
seem to partake of it.
THE FIRST EGYPTIAN. And I! A sound observation!
THE THIRD EGYPTIAN. The lure of life! It has never lost its charm for
me.
THE MINISTER (to himself). Nor for me.
THE FAWN (cavorting near, his kex to his lips, piping vigorously). Heavy
dolts! Little they know of joy except to stare at it.
THE MINISTER (indicating the fawn). And this animal—to profane a temple!
THE MONK (mischievously). And do you still cling to earthly notions of
sanctity?
THE MINISTER. I hold as I have said, that there must be some power that
explains us.
THE TWELVE HAMA-DRYADS (dancing and singing):
Round and round a dozen times,
Three times up and three times down,
Catch a shadow circlewise,
Fill it full of thistledown.
Fill it up and then away—
How can stupid mortals know
All the gladness of our play—
Where the dew wet odours blow,
Round and round and round we go!
THE BUM (spinning near). This is glorious! Gee!
FIRST EGYPTIAN (unconscious of anything save the charm of the rhythm).
Sweet vibrations these. But not our ancient harmonies. In our time they
were different.
SECOND EGYPTIAN. Our day! Our day! Endless memories of days. Oh, for an
hour of sealed illusion!
THE BOY LOVER. Isn’t it perfect!
THE GIRL. Divine! It’s like a dream and I want to cry.
THE THIRD EGYPTIAN. The harmony! The harmony! (He points_ _to the boy
and girl. The three approach and stand before the lovers, viewing them
with envious eyes). In ancient Egypt—on the banks of the Nile—how keen
was this thrill of existence. How much greater is their reality than
ours. And all because of their faith in it.
(The minister and the monk approach).
THE ORGANIST (finishing with a flourish). Well, there’s the end of my
work tonight. (He closes various stops, begins to gather up his music
and turn out the lights. The dryads and nymphs flood out of the windows,
followed by the fawns, the hags, and the wastrels. The green-eyed bum
starts to go, but pauses, looking back wistfully. The Egyptians, fading
from their presence as such, appear only as pale flames of blue).
MRS. STILLWATER. Now that was lovely, wasn’t it?
MRS. PENCE. Charming, very charming!
THE BOY. Don’t you love Wagner?
THE GIRL. I do! I do! (In the shadows they embrace and kiss).
THE ORGANIST (wearily as he bustles down the stairs). Why should I play
any more for four people? It is nine o’clock. A half hour is enough. At
least I can find a little comfort at the Crystal Garden. (He thinks of
an immense beer place, and shrugs his shoulders the while. The old
doorman, hearing him go out, prepares to put out the lights).
MRS. STILLWATER (rising). I do believe it’s over.
MRS. PENCE. Well, there are so few you can scarcely blame him.
THE BUM (gloomily). Now I gotta find somepin’ else.
THE CHURCH CAT (prowling toward the organ loft in the dark of the closed
church). Now for one more try at that mouse.
FINIS.
Editorials and Announcement
_Powys at the Hebrew Institute_
On page 43 there is announcement of a series of lectures by John Cowper
Powys. I can hear him now on the philosophical basis of democracy: “My
dear friends, the philosophical basis of democracy is individualism”! As
to the Nietzsche and Dostoevsky lecture, you may count upon it being one
of the memorable occasions of your life.
_The Foreigner in America_
Mary Antin is talking all through the country of the wonderful things
America does for the foreigner. These things are not true.
I went the other night to an affair given by a Norwegian woman and her
husband before a gathering of Chicago’s representative intellectuals.
The woman was Borgny Hammer, an actress of tremendous power from the
National Theatre, Christiania. Mme. Hammer plays Ibsen so well that
there is not much chance of her playing it very often. On this
particular evening she gave some Björnson things and talked with naive
fervor of Norway as compared with this commercialized land. Her
intensity was so authentic and so beautiful and so moving that it became
almost pitiable in that stiff, self-contained room. Mme. Hammer could be
playing _Ghosts_ and _Master Builder_ and _Beyond Human Power_, could be
giving nightly inspiration to thousands of unimaginative Americans if
America was able to offer the foreigner one tenth of what the foreigner
brings to America.
Not long ago the Hebrew Institute of Chicago refused its platform to
Alexander Berkman who was to speak there on the Schmidt and Caplan case.
Some one who sympathized with the action of the directors explained to
me that it was a wise move on their part because the foreigners,
especially the Russian Jews, are so easily inflamed. Thank heaven they
are! If only something could be done to inflame the American. Well—there
is always the flag....
_The Russian Class_
The group for the study of Russian literature will have a preliminary
meeting in room 612 Fine Arts Building on Friday, January 14, 1916, at 8
p. m. All interested are invited.
The Illusions of “The Art Student”
There has made its appearance in this city of ours a new magazine, _The
Art Student_. Its desire, according to the editor’s announcement, is to
“help establish a bond of understanding between the American student of
the allied arts and the public.”
This aim is commendable and deserves the co-operation of everybody
unselfishly interested in the promotion of American art.
The reason for this publication at the present time is also given in
that announcement. It says there: “With all Europe at war and its art
centers crippled, it is not only America’s opportunity, but her duty, to
preserve and promote art in its various forms.”
I am afraid the youthful enthusiasm of _The Art Student_ is the cause
both of this exaggeration as concerns Europe and the illusion as
concerns America.
We have heard much and read more about America’s opportunity these last
fourteen months. First it was the trade fields deserted by the warring
nations in South America and the Orient; then it was the sea routes
closed to the second biggest merchant fleet of the world—the opportunity
for an American merchant marine; and now it is our opportunity in the
field of Art!
What has become of the first illusions of which our papers and magazines
were full? England expanded her commerce in South America, having forced
for the time being her German rival from that field of hottest
competition, and Japan practically monopolized the commerce of China.
England increases her merchant fleet by capering American ships, and the
Pacific Mail retires voluntarily from the Pacific ocean.
That is the result of our boasted opportunity in the realm of trade and
commerce. Why? Because we underestimated others and because we talked
about our own foreign methods instead of changing our own and acting.
And now in Art we are doing exactly the same thing. We point with horror
to the war that cripples European art and acclaim loudly the superiority
of our civilization.
Gentlemen, you are all wrong. Art is not crippled in Europe through the
war! Inter arma silent musae! The arts are silent, they sleep. Silence
and sleep we all understand are good things. The first helps us to
concentrate and find ourselves, the latter gives us new strength.
And that is the worst that the war does to Art in Europe. Art is at
present less active, a self-imposed inactivity, owing to circumstances;
not crippled, a result of direct unartistic influences.
European Art is free of such crippling influences. Art schools are not
run by local millionaires, galleries not governed by rich manufacturers,
academy instructors not selected by wealthy trustees with the sole idea
that their insignificance will insure submittance to the layman rule!
Is Sir Thomas Lipton president of the Royal Academy? No! Is Herr von
Krupp president of the Duesseldorf Academy? No! Do they make bankers and
brewers directors and trustees of art institutions in Paris or Munich?
No! Do they in St. Petersburg or Vienna? No! Do they in Berlin or Rome?
No! Do they in Brussels or Madrid? No!
_Do they in America? Yes!_
Do they in England, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, or Australia invite
their best painters and sculptors to teach in their academies? Yes! _Do
they in America? No!_ Do they in England, France, Russia, Italy,
Germany, or Austria select these teachers from mediocrities who will be
sure not to revolt against the incompetent decisions of a layman board
of trustees? They don’t!
_Do they in America? They do!_
What is “city beautiful” in Europe? It is a fact! _What is it in
America? It is a “slogan.”_
No, gentlemen, you need not be worried about European Art! War is not
inartistic. Money is! A general staff in war time can destroy what art
has created! Our system of millionaire trustees is preventing Art from
creating!
War in Europe can kill artists, it cannot kill art.
In America we kill art and our artists escape to Europe.
—_Garnerin._
The Theatre
“Grotesques”
Cloyd Head—Maurice Browne: comparatively misty names, far below the
golden monolith at whose base is carefully engraved the word—Granville
Barker. Mr. Barker resurrects Greek tragedies and Shakespeare plays and
produces them acceptably; Cloyd Head and Maurice Browne have evolved an
absolutely new stage method and draped it about a poetic concept.
Therefore Cloyd Head and Maurice Browne will probably be heralded and
worshipped ten years from now, at the earliest. They must pay the
penalty of originality and the ability of appreciating it.
In _Grotesques_ recently produced at the Chicago Little Theatre, for the
first time, actors posed as black and white marionettes in a series of
decorations created by Fate, masquerading as a sardonic artist. The idea
of Fate moving human beings together as one shuffles a pack of cards is
old. But the portraying of this shuffling through conventional
decorations with the actors giving the jerking semblance of puppets, and
with Fate personified, directly addressing the audience, is sparklingly
new. Capulchard, the artist, has made a decoration symbolizing the
background of life—an utterly simple picture composed of a
conventionalized black and white wave effect, a black sky, a round white
moon, stiff white trees, an owl on one of their branches, and a
lotus-flower. From his marionette boxes at both sides of the decoration
he drags forth his puppets—man motif, woman motif, crone motif, sprite
motif, girl motif, and carelessly waves them into various poses, the
main incidents of their lives. But they gradually become aware of him,
they begin to speak out of their lines, to burst into tiny rebellions
which he controls with difficulty. They show increasing determination to
mar his series of decorations. Finally in a moment of sublime defiance,
headed by the man-motif, they slash their strings. The result—Death.
Capulchard carelessly erases the decoration—it has served its purpose.
I shall probably fully drain _Grotesques_ after slowly reading it again
and again. But even now, Cloyd Head’s huge child whose face is like the
pointed petals of sun-flowers, has aroused a little cluster of reactions
within me. To sharply visualise the play, you need not see the actual
black and white of the decoration, and the über-marionettes who move
stiffly through it. The words of the play themselves are black and
white: you feel them as an inextricable part of the picture: there is
something in their staccato rising and falling that suggests light and
darkness evenly spread upon a canvass. Something in the even placing and
sounding of phrases like this:
Who am I that come,
Caressing tenderly the sign of bird?
A Girl, in white, alone, beside the pattern brook.
I wander without fear, of fear not having heard.
It is not easily explained. It is a feeling that can only come to one
after repeated reading of the play.
A second reaction comes to one while loitering with the images in their
jerking procession. Each image, with its absolute minimum of words, has
two clear virtues—the expression of emotion half-human and half
artificial, and the concentration of just enough of this emotion to
produce an illusion of the whole. Consider this speech of the sprite
motif:
Tiptoe a-tread—thru the wood—by the brook—the sprite
enters—oh, ho!
Dance, crinkled stream!
Ha; a dragon-fly poised upon air.
(_Blows_) ... Begone.
(_Reflectively_) It is night.
(_Bowing_) Madame Owl.
Hoot! To-whoo!
An actual sprite-soul in life would babble, would use more extravagant
phrasing. In this sprite passage, just enough of the babbling and
exuberance has been given, to suggest the essence of it; just enough
words have been given, to suggest the steady motion of the invisible
strings. These qualities run throughout the speeches of all the
über-marionettes.
Book Discussion
_Plays for Small Stages, by Mary Aldis. New York: Duffield and
Company._
These plays are among those acted by the Lake Forest Players, and,
written especially for them, they exemplify certain qualities of drama
and stage-craft which are of special value in amateur production. First
of all they are real in situation. Two of the five, _Mrs. Pat and the
Law_ and _Extreme Unction_, deal with slum life, but with phases of it
which the amateur can study at first hand, and is, indeed, the better
for studying. The juxtaposition in both types of the submerged tenth and
the reachers of helping hands suggests that the plays have in fact,
grown out of such study. The former sketch is done with a brilliancy of
Irish humor and fancy that reminds the reader of Lady Gregory’s best.
The latter is the grim tragedy of a dying prostitute—a situation
relieved first by the mordant irony of the conventional religious
pouncet-box of the well-meaning lady visitor, and later by the
sympathetic imagination of the physician. A third play, _The Drama
Class_, presents with broad humor an occasion familiar to all uplifters
of the drama in regions which on the “culture map” are lightly
shaded—the discussion of a modern European play by a woman’s club. _The
Letter_ and _Temperament_ represent the maladjustments of monogamy—the
one with tragic emphasis, the other in pure farce. The point should be
noted, however, that all five are plays of situation, static rather than
dynamic, expository and revealing rather than developing—the type most
suited to the dimensions of the one-act play, and made familiar by the
playwrights of the Abbey and Manchester Theatres. As Mrs. Aldis says in
her preface, speaking of the general policy of the Lake Forest Players:
“In selecting plays we have departed radically from the amateur
tradition of resuscitating ‘plays with a punch,’ which have fared well
in the hands of professionals. In the established tricks of the trade,
of course the amateur cannot compete with the professional.” In writing
as well as in selecting plays for amateur performance Mrs. Aldis has
wisely preferred truth of situation to the “punch.”
In the second place Mrs. Aldis has made her characters speak the
language of life rather than that of the stage. This trait again fits
her plays for amateur production, especially in a small theatre where
effects can be gained without the emphasis of stage talk. Working as she
says for a small stage Mrs. Aldis has been able to reproduce with
striking fidelity not only the vocabulary but the movement, the rhythm,
even the intonations of human speech. This kind of naturalism is of
great importance in the drama of situation. The words in which Mrs.
Aldis calls attention to this connection, and to the possibilities of
artistic success in amateur acting depending thereon might have occurred
in Maeterlinck’s essay _The Drama in Daily Life_. “We seek,” she says,
“plays in which the mental attitude and the interplay of character are
more important than the physical action. Here, if anywhere, lies the
amateur’s opportunity. So we are not afraid of plays with little action
and much talk.... It is in talk, low and intense, gay and railing,
bitter and despairing as the case may be, that we moderns carry on the
drama of life, the foundation of the drama of the stage.”
—_Robert M. Lovett._
_The State Forbids: A Play in One Act, by Sada Cowan. New York:
Mitchell Kennerley._
The mother speaks: “The State won’t let us women help ourselves. We
_must_ have children whether we want them or not, and then the State
comes and takes them from us. It doesn’t ask. It commands. We’ve got to
give them up. [_Shrilly_] I’ve got to give my boy. [_Again shrilly_]
What are we, we women? Just cattle. Breeding animals ... without a
voice! Dumb—powerless! Oh, the State! The State commands! and the State
forbids! Damn the State!”
It is to appear in vaudeville. Like _War-Brides_ it is woman propaganda;
but here the emphasis is on Birth Control. Like _War-Brides_ it is
negative as literature, but the woman speeches make smashing vaudeville.
We wonder whether it is the importance of its idea or its evident value
as a thriller and shocker which prompts its production.
The Reader Critic
_Ben Hecht, Chicago_:
I congratulate you on the roseate misconceptions of “Life Itself.” Long
live your fancies—mine didn’t. The perfumes of Araby are short-lived in
a slop-jar.
I envy you your dogmatic naïveté until I remember something I thought of
long ago:—that ideals are for the weak; that people who live on fancies
starve for lack of sorrow, shrivel for lack of cynicism, and finally die
of inhibition.
I remember, in a discussion on art the other evening, your crying out
about “the eternal standard” and I feeling it was true but not knowing
what it meant. I know now. It meant nothing. It is just another fancy.
Vive la divinité!
Remember what Homo Sapiens discovered: the limitations of the
infinite—of his brain. They are as nothing to the limitations of our
Gods.
_GOD’S GARDEN—THE WORLD_
(_Yes, this still happens. We get hordes of such letters._)