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THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
Photo, hv PacTt 
 
 Bronson Howard 
 
THE 
 
 AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 MONTROSE J. MOSES 
 
 AUTHOR OF *' THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH," " HENRIK 
 THE MAN AND HIS PLAYS," ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED 
 
 Mn^tvattti 
 
 INON-REFERT 
 
 pqWVAD • QHS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 

 ^1^ 
 
 Copyright, 1911, 1917 
 By LiTixE, Broavn, & Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 J. Pabkhill & Co., Boston, U.S. A. 
 
 JUN 28 1917 
 ©CLM70105 
 
TO 
 
 the memory of 
 Three American Dramatists 
 
 Bronson Howard 
 James A. Herne 
 Clyde Fitch 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 There is no book treating distinctively of the American 
 Dramatist and his work. This volume is therefore designed 
 to meet a want which some day will be felt, though at present 
 the literary critic contents himself in the belief that there 
 is no American drama, and never has been. Be this as it 
 may, the activity has none the less existed, and no literary 
 treatise has dealt with it properly. 
 
 The task has been a very agreeable one, but not easy, 
 for the material is scattered, and each year becomes more 
 chaotic. If the student of the drama does not begin to realize 
 that dramatic records must be preserved, there will never 
 be any hope for the future literary historian who might 
 desire to consider the evolution of American drama. The 
 cop3Tight law governing theatre literature should require 
 at least one copy of a play registered in Washington, pro- 
 vided, of course, it has been given adequate production. 
 
 Such precaution would assure to the student that which 
 is his by right — the means of following a certain art ac- 
 tivity which, even though it cannot now stand the test 
 of pure literary comparison, at least appealed to popular 
 taste and reflected popular interest. 
 
 Had it not been for the whole-souled assistance rendered 
 me at every turn, this book would have been impossible to 
 write. I have had access to private papers, I have spent 
 many pleasant and profitable hours examining manuscripts, 
 and studying personalities. These are the attractive moments 
 that give human value to work which could be readily 
 swamped in detail. 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 But research requires patience, and one is brought sud- 
 denly to a grim realization of its slowness. When this book 
 was begun, A. M. Palmer was alive; during its initial period 
 I profited by the unfailing help and encouragement of Bron- 
 son Howard, and later I was made to feel the necessity for 
 such a book thi'ough the splendid enthusiasm of Clyde 
 Fitch. Chapters written then have had to be altered be- 
 cause these men are dead. But they are not forgotten 
 even though the literary critic fail to recognize them. 
 
 The American drama is a fact; it has a body, whatever 
 the value of its spirit. In its local sense, it is a reflection 
 of local condition and type characteristics; in its technical 
 sense, it exhibits special mannerisms, and shows itself sub- 
 jected to special influences. The American dramatist has 
 evolved from certain social factors, and his product — the 
 American drama — has developed by reason of theatrical 
 economics. There are always definite reasons to be found 
 for every literary activity. If at one time the American stage 
 was filled with American types of similar cartoon value, 
 such was the accepted convention of the time; if there was 
 more French attitude than American in the early society 
 drama, it was because French technique was being imitated; 
 if Bronson Howard has a right to the title of Dean of the 
 American Drama, he must have stemmed a current that 
 opposed him; if journalism dominates our stage to-day, 
 there must be some reason for the reportorial treatment of 
 most of our present native drama. 
 
 I have tried to carry out this plan in the following pages: 
 to emphasize the individual contributions to the idea of an 
 American drama, to summarize the striking qualities of 
 dramatists who are original in position, to enumerate the 
 social and economic causes affecting the theatre, and through 
 the theatre hmiting the dramatist's work. 
 
 Since this book was fu'st written, many changes have 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 taken place in the drama, both as relates to its spirit and to 
 its external functioning. I have added three new chapters 
 to the material herewith offered, indicating the rise of new 
 dramatists, the influence of Little Theatres, and the advance 
 in the technique of the moving-picture. I have left the other 
 chapters as they were when first v/ritten, not thinking it 
 necessary to go into the small details of change which have 
 occurred since 1910. 
 
 For example, on page 247, 1 have referred to the possibility 
 of a stadium being erected in New York City. This stadium 
 has been erected, and has been put in use: first, for the 
 exploitation of Greek drama under the direction of Gran- 
 ville Barker; then as a setting for the stupendous Shake- 
 speare Tercentenary Masque, "Caliban," written by Percy 
 Mackaye; and finally for grand opera in the open. The 
 use of the stadium, as a theatre, at New York City College, 
 and at Harvard University, together with the playing of 
 "Iphigenia in Tauris," in the Yale Bowl, have had no 
 appreciable effect, thus far, in indicating to the American 
 Dramatist that the stadium, as a theatrical setting, is of any 
 great value. Due to the rise of pageantry, it may be 
 that the stadium will, in the future, be utilized as a theatre 
 for the Democracy. But, unless the American Dramatist 
 is to be a writer of pageants, like Dr. Thomas Wood Stevens, 
 the subject is one which has no place in a book of this 
 character. 
 
 My indebtedness is great, largely measured by a bibhog- 
 raphy which I have compiled for the benefit of the Ameri- 
 can student. This bibliography, with the one appended to 
 my "Famous Actor-Families of America," in general covers 
 the field of theatrical activity in this country. 
 
 In particular, I wish to acknowledge the courtesy shown 
 me by the library authorities of Columbia University. The 
 New York Public Library contains a most valuable col- 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 lection of material, which has yet to be properly sorted. 
 To Mrs. James A. Heme, Professor Brander Matthews, 
 Mr. Percy Mackaye, and others, I take this opportunity of 
 extending my thanks for their generous desire to aid me. 
 
 My thanks are also due to the Editors of The Book 
 News Monthly, The Independent, The Bellman, The Forum, 
 and The Theatre Magazine for permission to use certain 
 articles which I have published from time to time. 
 
 Montrose J. Moses. 
 May 29, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 Chapter 
 
 I Drama as a Social Force 1 
 
 II The Essentials of an American Play . 11 
 
 III The Trend of American Drama from 
 
 1750 TO 1870 37 
 
 IV Our Literary and our Closet-Drama. . 59 
 V Bronson Howard: Dean of the Ameri- 
 can Drama 73 
 
 VI James A. Herne and the Realistic Drama 90 
 VII David Belasco and the Psychology of 
 
 the Switchboard Ill 
 
 VIII The Case of Percy Mackaye and His 
 
 Father 135 
 
 IX The Cardboard Play and the Well- 
 Made Play: Augustus Thomas and 
 
 William Gillette 154 
 
 X Concerning Clyde Fitch and the Local 
 
 Sense 169 
 
 XI Concerning Melodrama 186 
 
 XII The Kinetoscopic Theatre 200 
 
 XIII The Progress of the Moving-Picture 
 
 since 1910 215 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 XIV Should the Poetic Drama be Dramatized 227 
 
 XV Sunlight, Moonlight, and Footlight . 239 
 
 XVI Forms of American Drama 251 
 
 XVII A New or a National Theatre . . . 276 
 XVIII The Advance of American Drama since 
 
 1910 289 
 
 XIX The Craze for Little Theatres . . . 309 
 
 XX The Need for a Dramatic Library . . 341 
 XXI The Disintegration and Regeneration 
 
 OF THE Theatre 352 
 
 XXII L'Envoie 367 
 
 Bibliography 379 
 
 Index 395 
 
LIST OF PORTRAITS 
 
 Page 
 Bronson Howard Frontispiece 
 
 Edwin Milton Royle 13 
 
 Channing Pollock 16 
 
 William Vaughn Moody 24^ 
 
 Charles Klein 33^ 
 
 Richard Harding Davis 37* 
 
 Augustin Daly 57" 
 
 Rachel Crothers 83' 
 
 James A. Heme 92 
 
 David Belasco 112*" 
 
 A. M. Palmer 117- 
 
 Henry C. De MiUe 135^ 
 
 Percy MacKaye and Charles Rann Kennedy .... 140' 
 
 Steele MacKaye 144 
 
 Augustus Thomas 160' 
 
 William Gillette 166' 
 
 Clyde Fitch 170^ 
 
 Dion Boucicault 188- 
 
 Josephine Preston Peabody 229 
 
 Edward Harrigan 271^ 
 
 George Ade 274' 
 
 Minnie Maddern Fiske 283^ 
 
 Charles Hoyt 346 
 
 Rupert Hughes 377'' 
 
 y^ 
 
THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 CHAPTER-^ I 
 
 DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 We are so prone to pin our faith to terms, that we are quite 
 in danger of receiving a distorted idea of drama as art, and 
 of the theatre as a social institution. It is well to note that 
 frenzied drama has been tried and found wanting. After 
 all, it is bad economics to shut one's eyes to the character 
 of popular, average returns on one's investments. It is 
 incumbent upon us to lay significant stress upon the moral 
 accountability of the theatre to the civic body as a civic 
 institution, and of the playvvright to the community as a 
 citizen. But the manager has a right to expect some tangible 
 response from his audiences in exchange for amusement given 
 them. The freedom of the theatre from the calculating 
 touch of commercialism would be only one of the agents to 
 call forth the best energies of the citizen-plaj^wright in 
 America. 
 
 The endowed institution, much less a subsidized theatre, 
 would not alone create the art demand, would not alone 
 call forth the highest type of communal expression, would 
 not alone establish the poet as dramatist, even though he 
 might have his hand upon the pulse of the people. There is 
 a deeper education to be done first; for in every true move- 
 ment which has carried the world forward in its progressive 
 growth, the real dramatist has risen above conditions, and, 
 by seeming acceptance of physical and formal convention, 
 has, in the end, forced convention with him. 
 
2 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Critics of the theatre are prone to rush headlong into a 
 most compHcated of machines, and expect to change in the 
 twinkhng of an eye the whole social, economic, aesthetic, and 
 spiritual organism of the institution. At least it were wiser 
 to take conditions as they are, rather than to supplant them 
 with chimerical and untried theories. For everyone will 
 agree that in the education of theatre audiences, the first 
 essential is to begin with the audiences; not to close the 
 vaudeville houses to them, but to make them challenge the 
 validity of their fragmentary amusement, and to think on 
 the possible enjoyment of higher things. The American 
 theatre manager of the present has much on his side of the 
 argument, when he holds fast to certain types of theatrical 
 successes, until he is assured of a different demand; until 
 he is certain that his change of bill will guarantee him 
 against loss. 
 
 The greatest hope of the theatre to-day rests with the 
 people. The first expressions of communal art came from 
 the people; the Greek drama developed from a national 
 sentiment and from a national religious custom. The modern 
 stage came into existence through a church necessity and by 
 way of vulgar tongue and guild support. So we see that, 
 institutionally, the art of representing life has always been 
 called into use for social purposes. However much it has 
 been elaborated from the old wcero or tribal songs of grief, 
 and from the tropes of the church service; however much it 
 has departed from the dithyrambic chorus, it has made its 
 appeal to the crowd. The theatre that is cut aloof from the 
 crowd, if it is not altogether impossible, is at least so anaemic 
 that its energies are squandered for want of the red blood 
 of popular appreciation. The whole art value of drama is 
 at first determined by the extent of its instant appeal to a 
 crowd; and there are as many types of drama as there are 
 broad communal appeals. 
 
DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 3 
 
 The mistaken idea has long been held that the play is a 
 thing governed wholly by the caprice of the dramatist. 
 The theatre is always close to life, and exists by reason of 
 communal sanction. Even artificial comedy grew out of 
 the prevalence of artificial manner. Dramatic form has in 
 turn been moulded to receive the content, and has been 
 changed as the content was changed; this is best seen in a 
 comparison of "OEdipus" with Ibsen's "Ghosts." The 
 dramatic treatment of the mysteries of life, as they react 
 upon the individual, has been modified in accordance with 
 the highest individual action toward those very mysteries. 
 Hence the progress from the Greek idea of Fate, to the meta- 
 physical concern for the individual soul, to the modern con- 
 ception of heredity — almost as inexorable as Fate — and 
 finally to the collectivist concern for social regeneration, 
 which seems to be the color of American drama. 
 
 It makes no difference how you approach the drama — 
 whether from its physical, its technical, or its economic 
 side — the crowd is always concerned, and very largely 
 determines, through public opinion, the dramatist's ten- 
 dency, even as he, if he be big enough, reinforces or 
 determines the crowd's cast of thought. 
 
 In the opening pages of his book on "Social Forces in 
 German Literature," Professor Kuno Francke writes: 
 
 "The fundamental conception which underlies the fol- 
 lowing account ... is that of a continued struggle between 
 individualistic and collectivistic tendencies, between man 
 and society, between personality and tradition, between 
 liberty and unity, between cosmopolitanism and nationality 
 — a struggle which may be said to be the prime motive 
 power of all human progress." 
 
 Undoubtedly, from such a conflict we are certain of obtain- 
 ing a moving literature as well as a contemplative one. 
 Through it, there is the dramatic impulse, the theatrical 
 
4 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 clash, the hfe force — on the one hand seeing intensely, on 
 the other dreaming truly; and who knows but the time is 
 now at hand in America when this social impulse shall again 
 lead to our prophesying boldly? 
 
 In all that pertains to the greatest literature, dramatic or 
 otherwise, the one tremendous law of life is that it must flow 
 through us, purging the soul of its impurities, even though 
 in doing so it deal with the impure, for the purpose of 
 correcting evil. Modern social drama, as represented by 
 Ibsen, Hauptmann, and Sudermann, with their less inevitable 
 follower, Pinero, is full of such atmosphere. 
 
 Let it be granted, before the argument as to social forces 
 is stated, that drama is something to be played before 
 people, and hence is something to move people. This is one 
 of its essential characteristics, one of its chief marks of dis- 
 tinction in comparison with other species of forceful litera- 
 ture. We also grant, echoing Freytag, Price, and others, 
 who in turn but faintly echo Aristotle, that drama is reflec- 
 tive of life, and is necessarily influenced by the intellectual, 
 social, and economic environment of the dramatist, even 
 though the subject-matter be foreign to the time in which 
 the dramatist lived. Throughout Shakespeare, whether he 
 be dealing with the Caesars, with the Capulets, or with the 
 Danes, the Elizabethan is always nigh. No man in any walk 
 of life may escape his age. Even the iconoclasts are in 
 advance of theirs as a reaction against it; or as Emerson 
 claims, every social reform was once a private opinion. 
 
 Again, it is wise to grant in drama as in life that conflict 
 means clash of will. The heroic marionettes interpret this 
 as a clash of physical bodies, due to unbridled physical 
 passion outwardly made manifest. The humanistic drama 
 regards it in a deeper, a more intensive sense. This clash 
 involves philosophical distinction, and is nowhere better 
 exemplified than in the progress of Maeterlinck, whose con- 
 
DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 5 
 
 ception of Destiny has altered to accord with his later belief 
 that human will may sometimes control the working of 
 Fate. We now recognize nothing as wholly inevitable that 
 comes from our own life-force. Destiny has changed into a 
 Christian principle that as we sow, so shall we reap. "We 
 are masters of our Fate," sings Henley. We destroy only 
 that we may build better upon our mistake, or, as Shaw 
 says: "Every step in morals is made by challenging the 
 validity of the existing conception of perfect propriety in 
 conduct." 
 
 The drama, therefore, depends upon social support; it 
 has to talk of life in terms of life, and it has to appeal to 
 life in matters with which life is concerned. Even before 
 nationality in drama added characteristics which distin- 
 guished the British from the French or Germans, and differ- 
 entiated the Americans as separate, even though a part of 
 the English, the drama echoed the fundamental principles 
 of life, and dealt specifically with the vital energy which 
 surged through man's blood. 
 
 Of course, even to-day, the vital literature at its most 
 vital moments transcends nationality, though not rejecting 
 it. Ibsen in Scandinavia, Hauptmann and Sudermann in 
 Germany, Tolstoy in Russia, Shaw in England, are all swept 
 by the same social movement which tends toward partial 
 social solution, even though the methods of using it are 
 surprisingly uncomfortable for those of us who are willing, 
 as Vockerat says in Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives," to 
 be "the drones in the hive." To the big dramatist, to the 
 true citizen, the happy ending in drama is one that satisfies 
 only when it cleanses and leaves the soul in the light of 
 truth. 
 
 The drama as a social force — apart from its primary 
 object to have and to hold the interest of a crowd through 
 the essential factor of its story — has resulted in a species 
 
6 THE AMERICAN DRAJMATIST 
 
 of play which, for want of a better term, has been designated 
 "the social drama." It is really a drama of condition, social 
 or economic. All critics recognize it as a definite species: 
 Shaw in his prefaces, Henry Arthur Jones, Walkley, W. P. 
 Eaton, and Clayton Hamilton distinguish it as a form in 
 which the message is carried direct; in which conviction is 
 being hurled at the people, regardless of sensibilities and 
 regardless of whether the immediate crowd heed or not. 
 But the dramatist who disregards the crowd is no real man 
 of the theatre; he will find it difficult to have his philosophy 
 — social, economic, or spiritual — accepted across the foot- 
 lights. And truly, as ]\Ir. Hamilton has stated in his sug- 
 gestive book on " The Theory of the Theatre," the dramatist 
 under these conditions might as well be a novelist; he would 
 be heeded much more readily. Drama will not abide long 
 exposition, such as one finds in the plays of Paul Bourget 
 and in the last act of Augustus Thomas's " As a Man Thinks." 
 
 We grant, therefore, that no man may escape his time, 
 and least so the man of the theatre; the current of life 
 carries him with it. After summarizing Sudermann's "Hei- 
 mat," and calling it a "literary thundercloud," Professor 
 Francke describes modern Germany in this manner: 
 
 "On the one hand, Bismarck, whether in office or out; on 
 the other, Bebel. On the one hand, the ruling minority, 
 wonderfully organized, full of intellectual and moral vigor, 
 proud, honest, loyal, patriotic but hemmed in by prejudice, 
 and devoid of larger sympathies; on the other, the millions 
 of the majority, equally well organized, influential as a 
 political body, but socially held down, restless, rebellious, 
 inspired with the vague idea of a broader and fuller human- 
 ity. On the one hand, a past secure in glorious achievements; 
 on the other, a future teeming with extravagant hopes. On 
 the one hand, service; on the other, personality. On the 
 one hand, an almost religious belief in the sacredness of hered- 
 
DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 7 
 
 itary sovereignty; on the other, an equally fervent zeal for 
 the emancipation of all, both conservatives and radicals, 
 both monarchists and social democrats, inevitably drifting 
 toward the same final goal of a new corporate consciousness, 
 which shall embrace both authority and freedom.'' 
 
 Now, this summary includes the whole significance of 
 social forces, though it only examines the political and his- 
 torical aspects of the subject. There is no doubt that drama 
 also finds itself reflecting the same aspects, but more is 
 involved in the play by the very essence of its nature. His- 
 tory, philosophy, sociology, and economics deal with the 
 effects of social, economic, historical, and philosophical 
 action. Drama deals directly with those forces dominantly 
 in action; it designates this person as against that, this con- 
 dition as against that. One principle opposed to another 
 results only in philosophical speculation; it is neither life nor 
 drama. 
 
 Condition, after all, has a double effect. It not only colors 
 the play by keeping the playwright within the pale of vital 
 interests, but it likewise prompts the dramatist to incor- 
 porate therein that part of himself which is in rebellion 
 against existing condition. He exerts his art for three 
 reasons: to express himself, either inspirationally or con- 
 sciously; to convince others of the presence of social evil 
 in a community, showing them at the same time the means 
 of social betterment; and finally, to develop character in 
 relation to the conditions of which he treats. It is always 
 necessary to keep drama close to life, — a drama which not 
 only draws from life, but which in turn reacts on life itself. 
 
 This has made the writer of social drama intense, — per- 
 haps more absorbed than he should be in the beclouded 
 atmosphere which he strives to clear. The time has come 
 when we are beginning to see that the social dramatist's 
 vision has been too persistent in its view of evil. Life is not 
 
8 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 one continual shady past, and Eugene Walter's " The Easiest 
 Way," poignant in its theme, is neither healthy in its solution 
 nor agreeable in its situations. Everyone will grant that 
 even Ibsen, toward the close of his career, came to see where- 
 in he had robbed himself of the sweetness of life by the per- 
 sistent dwelling upon the canker-worm; he even began to 
 sneer at himself after having burned his soul with the red- 
 hot terror of "Ghosts." The ideaHst in "The Wild Duck," 
 who wrecks the conventional ideal happiness of others, is 
 only the cartoon of himself. Yet what larger social force in 
 modern drama than Ibsen — revolutionizing technique and 
 showing how to vitalize the commonplace incidents of life I 
 His social significance has been individual as well as com- 
 munal; and, curiously, though he disclaimed any effort on 
 his part to be a champion of women, his contemplation was 
 fixed on the feminine half of society which needed to be 
 free in order that civic life, and all civic institutions pledged 
 to the perpetuation of civic life, might be free. This is the 
 essential moral purpose of all social drama. 
 
 There are other ways of remedying society than by treat- 
 ing solely of conditions as they are. The realist has done 
 a deal of good by his so-called "muck-raking," but there is 
 likewise a necessary benefit to be conferred by "star-gazing." 
 Let us grant that only by respecting the rights of others will 
 a man respect himself. If he cannot regard the laws of 
 cities, let him have a care for the laws of nature. If he 
 cannot be the frock-coat citizen — and assuredly the pillars 
 of society need reinforcing some time — let him at least 
 be a man, not dependent on the dictates of his passion only. 
 
 Condition is simply the back-drop of life; man's soul and 
 woman's soul are the prime considerations. The horizon 
 may be dimmed by factory smoke, but while the "muck- 
 raker" is attempting to clear the atmosphere of condition, 
 there is no need to allow the soul to be smirched with black. 
 
DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 9 
 
 And when we speak of the horrors of tenement condition 
 in America, there is Hkewise another picture of epic breadth 
 we may hold in mind — the vast wheat fields of the West 
 under the open sky calling for labor, which either does not 
 or will not hear. We can draw from American life the feel- 
 ing that, however economically oppressed, in truth we are 
 masters of our fate. 
 
 As a social force, drama necessarily must be in touch with 
 the sympathies of those with whom it comes in closest con- 
 tact. The foreigner who brings to America a French play 
 wholly concerned with the problems of family life as the 
 Gallic spirit conceives it, will find the American superficially 
 attracted. There must be a touch of sympathy with condi- 
 tion in drama, as well as with human passion. We found 
 "Les Affaires sont les Affaires" ("Business is Business") 
 of poignant interest because its business strain was in accord 
 with Wall Street. Londoners could find nothing in the 
 problem of "The Lion and the Mouse" — aside from its 
 faulty logic — for the simple reason that to British audiences 
 the Standard Oil history is simply a history and not a condi- 
 tion confronting the Empire. 
 
 In this consideration of social forces — and no playwright 
 may disregard them — there are certain distinguishing 
 features of American life which may some day find unified 
 expression in a native theatre. We are being affected by 
 European drama to the extent that we are learning to make 
 use of the deep and vital problems of human nature, and to 
 exalt them above the mere effectiveness of situation; we are 
 being taught that there are intimate social relations which we 
 are too prone to take for granted without determining for 
 ourselves the exact foundations on which they are based; we 
 are learning technique from the European writers of social 
 plays, and need not be ashamed of the well-made dramas 
 by Augustus Thomas and William Gillette. Finally, we are 
 
10 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 beginning to see that the world-movement is touching our 
 own shores, and is demanding of us the solution of problems 
 much the same as those confronting every nation of the 
 earth. What we, as a civic body, may say is this: Let us 
 solve the problems according to our national strength, and 
 according to the moral point of view upon which we have 
 agreed to live as a nation. 
 
 The call of revolt in drama is not anarchy, and we in 
 America have not quite realized its meaning. But we are 
 intellectually alive to its presence. And in order to gain 
 strength we must feel in the soil, the common clay, for the 
 vital force which has yielded us more grain than our labor 
 is able to garner, but which has not yet yielded us a full 
 harvest of art and idealism. What now has to be determined 
 by our American dramatist is : how may he so combine what 
 is being learned from Ibsen on the one hand, and from 
 Maeterlinck on the other, as to create out of the workman, 
 the plowman, the laborer in the field, the artisan, a poet as 
 well as an ordinary man? 
 
 Yet we need not hesitate, for we perforce must seek in 
 condition, in the tang of our soil, for American drama. It 
 is useless to think that we may transplant something foreign 
 to our natures, and that it will flourish. We must meet 
 life in our own way, and not have it met for us by others 
 in their foreign way. Still, the value of social drama lies in 
 the impulse it gives to our dramatists to depend on other 
 than newspaper knowledge for condition and for human 
 nature. Social forces lie deep; they are not on the surface; 
 they are the true history of any movement. Hence, it is 
 not cleverness, but understanding, they require for their 
 full and ample explanation. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 
 
 We hear much about the American dramatist; we are al- 
 ways denying him, and at the next turn we are discovering 
 him. Some critics proclaimed with much assurance that 
 William Vaughn Moody had reached the goal in "The 
 Great Divide," but it was only notable in its suggestion of 
 largeness; some others, lost in the admiration of literary 
 values, declare that Percy Mackaye's "Sappho and Phaon" 
 was great drama and that his "Mater" adequately discussed 
 the problems of democracy. But these declarations are 
 futile, and have only relative significance. Either a dram- 
 atist has, or he has not, written a play with some telling 
 substance in it. That is the primary test of the theatre — 
 the test that knows no nationality. 
 
 Henry Arthur Jones is spoken of as an English dramatist 
 — first, because that language is his vehicle of expression. 
 Bronson Howard, Clyde Fitch, and David Belasco likewise 
 use this medium — and in such a sense American drama 
 is but a subdivision of the English drama. However, Mr. 
 Jones is a British dramatist because of something funda- 
 mentally deeper. Spiritually, mentally, socially, he has 
 been subject to national characteristics, he has been trained 
 in an English environment, he has been educated in English 
 institutions. It would have been as impossible for him to 
 conceive the theme of "The Lion and the Mouse," as it 
 
12 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 would have been for Charles Klein to have written it on his 
 first arrival in America. ■ 
 
 A dramatist's point of view must be shaped by the body 
 politic in which he lives. The interests and local distinctions 
 of any nationality are reflected in its literature, and the es- 
 sentials of an American play should reflect the essentials 
 of American life — not in the philosophic sense, but in the 
 broader and more human sense. 
 
 We are free in our use of the term, "American drama;" 
 we are even freer in our hasty assertions that no distinctively 
 American drama exists; and, what is more to the point, we 
 find it difiicult to define what is exactly the dominant note 
 that stamps a play as American. Let us attempt to define, 
 in order, the two terms in this cant phrase, "American 
 drama." 
 
 Consult the American dramatists of all grades of distinction, 
 and their opinions scarcely vary. Bronson Howard, the 
 Dean, once said : " By the term I should mean any play that 
 is written by an American, or in America by a foreign resi- 
 dent, that is produced here, and that deals with any subject — 
 using America in the sense of the United States. The phrase, 
 American drama, if extended to a full description, would be 
 * Plays written in the United States, chiefly in the English 
 language.'" As to general characteristics, Mr. Howard 
 recognized none as distinctive of this country alone, thereby 
 inferring that humanity is universal, whether garbed in a 
 cowpuncher's outfit or in a king's uniform. But Hamlin 
 Garland's claim that it is locality which marks nations, 
 and Bret Harte's exemplification of that fact, lead one to 
 agree with the terseness of Augustus Thomas' opinion that 
 the American drama is written by Americans upon American 
 subjects, and is stamped with peculiar humor and distinct 
 character-drawing. Such requisites even give rise to sec- 
 tional literature of a kind that distinguishes W. D. Howelb 
 
Edwin Milton Royle 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 13 
 
 from Thomas Nelson Page, or Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman 
 from Charles Egbert Craddock. Elsewhere Mr. Thomas 
 has asserted, " There are very few good lines in a play that 
 go to waste, and with their general acceptance as good, there 
 is little disposition to regard the nationality of the author. 
 A good line by anybody secures immediate recognition by 
 any audience of understanding." Herein, however, we 
 detect an element of weakness in Augustus Thomas, as a 
 playwright, for in many of his plays on the order of "De 
 Lancy," "Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots," and "The Other Girl," 
 wit and sharp lines predominate in lieu of any strong idea. 
 
 Harry B. Smith, writer of many comic opera librettos, 
 places rigorous requirement upon American drama. " I do 
 not think we have an American drama," he writes, "in the 
 sense that there is a French drama or an English drama. 
 Our plays are clever, run a season or two, and then are 
 relegated to the top shelf. There will be no American drama 
 until plays are written that endure, and take their place in 
 the body of literature. '* 
 
 It is the "square deal" that American audiences mostly 
 seek, such a spirit as made Milton Royle's "The Squaw 
 Man" a popular success. The large heart rather than the 
 subtle one, the direct deed rather than the evasive thought, 
 and the terse answer rather than the veiled meaning, compel 
 sympathetic interest in an American crowd. Most of our 
 dramatists have learned this directness through newspaper 
 work. Howard, Thomas, and Ade began as reporters. 
 
 This quality of " uplift, " therefore, is synonymous with the 
 word "American." To be an American means to have an 
 indisputable right to rise above environment. Democracy 
 knows but one level, and that is the equity of justice; de- 
 mocracy gives out the great privilege of drawing no dis- 
 tinctions and of raising no barriers, save those that are made 
 by differences of character. The American is placed upon 
 
14 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the highroad of Hfe, and there comes to him, in the face of 
 Fate, the American note: "It 's up to you." There it is in 
 a nutshell, and in the popular language. This is the dis- 
 tinctive character of the literature we are seeking and of the 
 drama which we hope to have. 
 
 The American is clean and healthy; to him the home 
 means a great deal. His temper is quick to renounce aban- 
 don, despite all we hear of the divorce courts at Reno; his 
 directness is not sympathetic toward what the faddist is 
 pleased to call subtlety. The dominant feature of American 
 character is action; hence it must be the essential requisite 
 of American, as it is of all, drama. 
 
 The indisputable right to rise above environment — is 
 that our fundamental note? It excludes the idea of tragedy 
 as the Greeks conceived it, and indeed we are not deeply 
 moved by the inevitable of Sophocles. Someone has written : 
 
 "In defeat, the American sows the seeds of victory; . . . 
 for there is no event, not the worst, but God is of and in it. 
 And for (Edipus in his remorse, and Oswald in his imbecility, 
 there is infinite certainty of good. . . . Paradoxical as it is, 
 the fact is clear that, in the heart of a Georgia mob, in Whit- 
 tier's verse, and in the cowpuncher's respect for a woman, 
 there lives the same spirit whose largeness and delicacy, 
 whose tenderness and unconquerable daring, made American 
 life the most vital in the world." 
 
 We applaud this nobleness of attitude, wheresoever it is 
 to be found ; we claim it as our own. There is an epic strength 
 to the fight — a force that will come, it may be, with the sweep 
 of melodrama, but healthfully active. In "The Virginian," 
 Owen Wister says: 
 
 " All America is divided into two classes — the quality 
 and the equality. The latter will always recognize the for- 
 mer when mistaken for it. Both will be with us until our 
 women bear nothing but kings. 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 15 
 
 "It was through the Declaration of Independence that 
 we Americans acknowledged the eternal inequality of man, 
 for we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen 
 little men artificially held up in high places, and great men 
 artifically held down in low places, and our own justice- 
 loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. There- 
 fore we decreed that every man should thenceforth have 
 equal liberty to find his own level. By this very decree 
 we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, 
 saying 'Let the best man win, whoever he is.' Let the 
 best man win! That is America's word. That is true 
 democracy." 
 
 The strength of our American life lies in a marked com- 
 panionship of the American people. We like evidences of 
 this fact in our books; we applaud it on our stage. This 
 is why "The Virginian," poor as it was in its dramatized 
 form, drew, for reason of its quiet dignity of conception, 
 its quick decision, and its elemental passion. 
 
 Speaking of his hero and heroine in " The Gentleman from 
 Indiana," which failed in its dramatization, Booth Tarking- 
 ton writes: "The genius of the American is adaptability, 
 and both were sprung from pioneers whose mean life de- 
 pended on that quality." But in this momentary accept- 
 ance of inherited environment lies the infinite source of 
 action. Later on in the narrative, there runs through the 
 hero's mind a definition of success : " To accept the worst 
 that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it instead of 
 despair." This is the dominant note in our American life, 
 and we seek it in our drama. 
 
 There is a speech in " Strongheart," a sincere and vigorous, 
 if not a vital, play by William C. DeMille, where an Indian 
 has to forsake his love of a white girl, because he is a red 
 man; yet in his strength of sentiment he claims his infinite 
 right as a man, "You have taken the land of my fathers," 
 
16 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 he cries, " yet when I Uve by your laws, you will not call me 
 brother. I am the son of a chief. In what way am I not 
 your equal? You would take from me my pride and my 
 love. Do you think you can take these without a struggle? 
 . . . You called me from among my mountains to be one of 
 you. I was happy there. You showed me the great life 
 beyond and now you bid me keep back! You tell me that I 
 may not share it, but must stand outside, because I am an 
 Indian. No, — I will not do it.'' 
 
 Then in the end, Billy, the typical American college boy, 
 sees Strongheart alone in his grief and goes to him. This 
 dialogue follows : 
 
 Billy: What 's up between you and the boys? 
 
 Strong.: The prejudice of centuries. 
 
 Billy: Is that straight? 
 
 Strong.: Yes. 
 
 Billy: Then I 'm ashamed of my whole race, and I '11 go and 
 tell 'em so. 
 
 An audience applauds such unstinted generosity; it has a 
 laugh of jubilation in it; it gives a reportorial comment, and 
 an incisive, spontaneous, youthful judgment. It comes 
 from a good heart, and is the verdict of man for man. 
 
 The indisputable right to rise above environment — here 
 is the source for large action, and it demands, in technique, 
 a quick grasp of essentials. 
 
 " I 'm a business man. Miss Dearborn," explains Curtis 
 Jadwin in Channing Pollock's dramatization of Frank 
 Norris's "The Pit." "It does n't take me long to discover 
 what I want, and, when I find that thing, I generally get 
 it. I want you to marry me." 
 
 This is not our customary way of showing sentiment, 
 but there is an activity in it typical of American life. It 
 reveals a defiance of petty convention and of cloaked mean- 
 ing. Our problem has largely been in the direction of stress 
 
Channing Pollock 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 17 
 
 and strain. Yet Jadwin, the typical business speculator on 
 Wall Street, is made to exclaim: 
 
 "Oh, it's not the money, Laura; it never was. It was 
 the excitement. I had to do something. I could n't sit 
 around and twiddle my thumbs. I don't believe in lounging 
 around clubs, or playing the race, or murdering game birds, 
 or running some poor, helpless fox to death." 
 
 Here one detects an essential contrast between English 
 and American life. We have no recognized type of the gay 
 Lord Quex class; we do not believe in the decadence that 
 grows from worse to worse. Because for two generations a 
 man's ancestors may not have been all that they should 
 have been, the present holds an infinity of reward in store 
 for him who has the strength to fight character, tradition, 
 or condition, in the light of truth. It is ever the cry of energy, 
 and the gleam of hope in a nature never beyond the point 
 of redemption. 
 
 In Richard Harding Davis's "Soldiers of Fortune" — a 
 success as far as popular dramatization was concerned — 
 Clay, the hero, says to the society Langham girl, who has 
 taunted him with being content to labor : 
 
 " No, ... I don't amount to much, but, my God ! . . . 
 when you think what I was. ... If I wished it, I could 
 drop this active work to-morrow, and continue as an ad- 
 viser — as an expert — but I like the active part better. 
 I like doing things myself. ... It 's better to bind a laurel to 
 the plow than to call yourself hard names." 
 
 The continental importations that come to us have nothing 
 of this ethical ring to them; they are teaching us the possi= 
 bilities that enter life, spiritually, socially, and economically; 
 they are warning us, by their realistic discussion, against 
 the part of life that flaunts degradation. That book is liked 
 the best in America, that play is applauded the most, which 
 gives a human soul the right of way to find its own salvation. 
 
18 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 The American tragedy is one of incompetence, — a lack of 
 individual character, and not of constitutional weakness 
 or of national depravity. 
 
 n 
 
 There is more than the mere defining of American drama 
 as something written by a native or a foreigner, resident in 
 America. There is even something more than the fact that 
 we are moved and prompted by events that confront us in 
 our social, political, industrial, and commercial relations. 
 Though immediate events may not be permanent, they are 
 at least significant, and drama should always deal with sig- 
 nificant moments, motives, or situations. The stage is 
 denied the right of emphasizing the existence of little mo- 
 ments. Ibsen maj^ seem to have done this, but his dramas 
 usually start at high speed, and advance by compressed 
 thought and essential dialogue. 
 
 To define American drama, it is as paramount that we 
 understand the essentials of drama in general, as that we 
 gauge the meaning of the word "American." History would 
 justify our differentiating drama from the mass of literature 
 by the very fact that the stage is the ultimate means by 
 which the dramatic writer intends to reach his public. I am 
 inclined to believe that drama is emphasized as a special 
 branch of literature primarily because the story is to be shown 
 in the active concrete, rather than told in the passive or 
 static — and that of necessity the word drama carries with 
 it the ideas and considerations of dramatist, actor, audience, 
 and stage. 
 
 Dramatic form does not always constitute drama, though 
 it may claim to mean literature. Tennyson failed signally as 
 a playwright — despite the support of Henry Irving; Brown- 
 ing likewise failed — despite the encouragement of Macready 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 19 
 
 — because the mind's eye saw what could not be visibly 
 depicted; because genius 'pondered where progressive action 
 should have carried forward the story to the end. But when 
 we obtain, in lieu, the poetry of a Tennyson or of a Browning 
 
 — even, in some respects, of a Stephen Phillips — we can 
 afford to lose the playwright. Yet we cannot see where the 
 fact of poetry should be an excuse for failure as playwright, 
 if the poet aims for the stage. 
 
 In America, we have the poetic drama, but it neither con- 
 trols the stage nor does it bear evidence of native strength. 
 "«Iudith of Bethulia," by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, was a slow- 
 moving tragedy, a mixture of Lady Macbeth and studied 
 history; it was devoid of spontaneous imagination, and the 
 action was embroidered in words. Josephine Preston 
 Peabody (Mrs. Lionel Marks) in her "Marlowe" or " The 
 Piper," Percy Mackaye in " A Garland to Sylvia," or ''Sappho 
 and Phaon," Ridgely Torrence in "Abelard and Heloise," 
 Olive Dargan in "Lords and Lovers" — all of them have 
 courted form alone, ignoring the dynamics of the stage, or 
 the exigencies of the scene. These plays are better fitted for 
 the closet. 
 
 A reading public and a theatre public differ in this: that 
 what the reader loses he may regain by turning back, but 
 what the audience misses is wholly lost, unless, by chance, 
 repetition brings it further on in the development of the plot. 
 American drama is not as yet sufficiently compact in struc- 
 ure to satisfy both the stage and literature. 
 
 We often hear it said that drama is a reflex of life; hence, 
 that American drama is a reflex of American life. This is 
 but another way of asserting that drama is action, since life 
 is action; that drama is imitation, since reflex means re- 
 flection; and that action is not an end in itself, but is defi- 
 nitely directed towards a goal, since life is full of purpose. 
 Drama, if it means directed action, must of necessity call in 
 
20 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the exercise of the human will, and where will is required, 
 there is involved the compensating element of opposition. 
 
 Therefore, a definition of drama should state that it is 
 action directed toward an end; that it is the exertion of hu- 
 man^will stimulated by some large emotional or mental view; 
 that it is struggle, whether against environment or the indi- 
 vidual — a struggle against Destiny or heredity or will. 
 
 There is a moment, however, when events, moved by con- 
 tending emotions, push action to its highest pitch. The tide 
 therefrom begins to ebb, to adjust or resolve itself. Were 
 we to express this progress by a curve of development, our 
 climax would be the crest of the wave, with the line of descent 
 sharper than that of ascent, yet governed in its direction 
 through every point of the curve from its beginning. Fran- 
 cisque Sarcey used the admirable term scenes a faire, which 
 indicates the organic consistency with which this curve of 
 drama is drawn. For if the playwright has clearly conceived 
 the central plan of his play, and has definitely fashioned in 
 his mind the characteristics of his chief dramatis personoB, 
 there are some scenes which enter his calculations whether 
 he will or not, which are essential to the understanding of 
 the story and to the development of the central figures. 
 
 Sometimes our American dramatist blinds himself to this 
 necessary consistency, since it demands rigorous workman- 
 ship and clear ideas; sometimes he is unable to cope with 
 such close, logical technique. This is true of most attempts 
 to convert novels into dialogue for the stage; the effort is 
 to externalize the important scenes in the book, which may- 
 hap have been blue-pencilled by the manager or his reader 
 as the situations most desired for a commercial success; 
 or those extrances and exits are selected that will best suit 
 the limitations of a particular actor. 
 
 In view of the fact that drama has, throughout its history, 
 been written for the stage, a definition should include certain 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 21 
 
 expression of the truth that drama is intended for representa- 
 tion. Theory will never make the dramatist; a few principles 
 will not construct a play. Shakespeare knew his playhouse; 
 Sophocles recognized the helpfulness of scenery; every world- 
 renowned dramatist has been brought into close relation 
 with the theatrics of his profession. And though there are 
 conventions for every age, conventions which modify the 
 form and affect the physical outhnes of the theatre itself, 
 from the playhouse of Shakespeare and Moliere to that of 
 Clyde Fitch and Augustus Thomas, the dynamic quality 
 of drama remains constant. It must appeal to the crowd. 
 This is as unfailing in exaction for the American dramatist 
 as it was for the ancient Greek. 
 
 Fine distinctions can never be rigorously formulated 
 and applied to drama. We cannot go to the theatre with a 
 head full of principles, and attempt to base every turn of 
 emotion, every technicality of structure, upon an axiom or 
 a psychological formula from a theatrical text-book. The 
 point cannot be sharply defined where comedy flows into 
 tragedy, or where tragedy fades into comedy, even though 
 the distinctions made by Aristotle in the " Poetics "'are clear 
 in mind. 
 
 Hence, in our pliable definition of drama, we may consider 
 the form and substance to be the imitation of a particular 
 action which should he accounted for from its beginning to its 
 end, in a style consistent with its emotional color, and which 
 is destined, through the medium of the artist, to awaken in 
 others a feeling of sympathy or repulsion. In the phrase, 
 "emotional color," we have the motive of the dramatist, 
 prompting him to write the play; the motive of the manager 
 in selecting the play for his theatre; and the motives of the 
 audiences in coming. The emotional value awakens the 
 desire; it is the awakening that determines the moral, the 
 educative effect of drama in a community. 
 
22 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Perhaps this may sound speculative, yet it involves the 
 practical elements at the basis of the theatre. So far, we may 
 say that all modern drama can be judged by these elements. 
 But such a definition as we have here constructed only affords 
 us a framework upon which to trace the pattern of a national 
 art, as well as of an art in general. Dramatic history indicates 
 that America and England have practically come under the 
 same dramatic influences; it will reveal the fact that while 
 in London, Robertson and Boucicault and Clement Scott 
 were making a livelihood by filching French plays and in- 
 fusing English sentiment into them, New York was being 
 subject to the same thing under the regime of Augustin Daly. 
 
 The American playwright, in view of this situation, had 
 for a long while to fight against managerial prejudice which 
 was in favor of the foreign market. The general rule was 
 that American successes were practically successes of Eng- 
 lish dramatists. This distrust of native talent was to be 
 deplored, but it was well grounded. For, in America, tech- 
 nical training was not particular at the outset. Our young 
 playwrights mistook curiosity for interest, noise for action, 
 and relied for effect on variety rather than on consistency, 
 on external antics of the dramatis personw rather than on 
 outward action as governed by mental state or social con- 
 dition. America is so large, territorially, that we seek for 
 sectional types and details of life, while in England the 
 dramatic author pays more attention to unity of conception 
 and technique — a unity that will sacrifice artifice, however 
 effective, for the sake of truth. But it is usually English 
 truth. 
 
 There are very definite reasons why Bronson Howard is 
 rightfully considered the Dean of American Drama — a 
 rightful title according to seniority, but more especially 
 because of his fight in the seventies and eighties for American 
 interests in American drama for the American people. Not 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 23 
 
 that drama of any kind, if it fulfill the requirements of 
 drama, will fail to grip us wherever we are, but as citizens 
 of a body politic we have our separate interests to consider. 
 
 Americans, as we have suggested, are characterized by 
 their directness; they are quick, decisive, and almost blunt 
 in conversation; they are practically imaginative at the 
 present, and that is why their inventions fill the market. 
 Their emotions are large, and their sympathies are easily 
 appealed to. The controlling factor in their make-up is 
 a sense of humor — not so subtle as the English, but 
 more good-humored. Daniel Frohman once said that the 
 Germans talked their plays, while the Americans acted 
 theirs. This is another essential of drama: constant move- 
 ment — a characteristic which is typical of American life. 
 
 The difference between British and American drama is 
 the difference between the London Times amd the New 
 York Herald. What we find in our morning paper, we are 
 most apt to find again in our evening play. The life of the 
 West is the melodrama of the East. These seemingly face- 
 tious statements are not far from the truth. Yet there can 
 be found no definite tendency in American drama of the 
 present, for the simple reason that there is no well-defined 
 philosophy of American life. We have just waked up to the 
 fact that in our own country, richness of humanity is as 
 plentiful as elsewhere. We draw from our history, especially 
 from the Civil War period, but have not sufficiently pene- 
 trated the social life of these vital times to create any per-_ 
 manent historical drama. James A. Herne^s "Griffith 
 Davenport'' — the only manuscript of which was burned in 
 a fire which totally destroyed the family homestead, " Heme 
 Oaks," — was the finest example of a war play treated in 
 spirit, rather than in martial action. Clyde Fitch's "Bar- 
 bara Frietchie" may be termed a quasi-war play only; 
 WiUiam Gillette's "Secret Service," well constructed and 
 
24 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 atmospheric, is superior to Bronson Howard's " Shenandoah" 
 both in verity and in story interest; Belasco's "The Heart 
 of Maryland" is more melodramatically striking than 
 William DeMille's "The Warrens of Virginia." Yet all of 
 these fail to grasp the essential conditions of the period. 
 
 In om* literary deluge of the past and present, we are able 
 to point only to a few products that have etched deep upon 
 the page the very fibre of national and sectional life. I always 
 like to mention as being in the same class, Hawthorne's 
 "The Scarlet Letter," Frank Norris's "The Octopus," James 
 Lane Allen's "The Reign of Law," and Ellen Glasgow's "The 
 Deliverance." Each one of these deals with something 
 psychologically large; each impresses us with the undoubted 
 fact that the situations, as well as the spiritual and physical 
 development of the characters, are dependent on the soil 
 which nurtured them. We have not as yet produced drama 
 of this character. William Vaughn Moody's "The Great 
 Divide," effective though it proved to be theatrically, was 
 a false imitation of the method. 
 
 There is in this country a deep interest in the drama of 
 condition. But in satisfying this interest, the playwright 
 must see that he does not lose grip on the essentials of all 
 drama. He must view action from its logical outcome to 
 its logical conclusion. However local he is, the underlying 
 force must be a motive that is human, that knows no local 
 restriction. 
 
 Thus, the essentials of an American play are subject to 
 most of the conditions which apply to the development of 
 English, French, or German drama. But temperament is 
 colored in subtle manner; heredity plays a part; tradition, 
 environment, mental training, spiritual guidance, social 
 demands, — all leave their impress upon individual life, 
 hence, upon the individual dramatist. There undoubtedly 
 is such a thing as American citizenship, apart from its 
 
Pho*o. by De W. C. Wood 
 
 William Vaughn Moody 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 25 
 
 political significance. The essential factor, therefore, is to 
 determine whether or not the artisan is a true playwright; 
 whether he understands drama, or whether he has a false 
 idea of its organic character. To obtain the best out of dra- 
 matic condition, we must create a body of dramatic criti- 
 cism strong enough to establish a wholesome attitude toward 
 our amusement. For in our desire to create a national 
 dramatic literature, we must not forget that it is far more 
 important to be true to life than to be true to locality. If 
 the dramatist, of whatever country, view life deeply, sin- 
 cerely, and fully, his background will of its own accord 
 assume its proper position in the picture. And he will more 
 assuredly find himself the author of a successful play. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The spirit of unrest is not only evident in social matters, 
 but in our amusements as well. We are playing with public 
 taste without any aim to our guns, and out of this has come 
 only novelty. What we need is the establishment of a school 
 of playwrights, prompted by some large impetus. If there 
 be originality at all on our American stage, it comes to us 
 from abroad, and is colored by foreign ideals. The motive 
 power of drama to-day is not native born; we in America 
 follow and imitate, or we try to counteract the moral tense- 
 ness of continental drama by the gaiety and ghtter of musical 
 comedy. 
 
 It cannot be expected that our stage would be the first 
 to offer what our American Hterature has scarcely supplied 
 — a body of ideas sufficiently strong to incite or to modify 
 public opinion, as Galsworthy's "Justice" wakened England. 
 One cannot refrain from saying that, apart from a small 
 number of American dramatists, most of those authors 
 writing for the stage are prompted by nothing more impelling 
 
26 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 than the tempting royalty returns. That is why novelists 
 wrongly whip themselves into dramatists. They are alive 
 to sensation as the reporter is alive, and curiously they lose 
 their literary sense of values. They are keen after a story, 
 but the narrative quality is not much above that of the 
 average ten-cent magazine. Though they would be the first 
 to disclaim it, they are nothing more than melodramatists, 
 not in the exaggerated sense of Eighth Avenue, but in the 
 realistic sense of the modern novel. 
 
 Since this is the condition, since theatrical business is 
 increasing without a corresponding increase in the authority 
 of the playwright, we may, with some reason, despair of 
 public taste as it concerns the stage. Where are we tending 
 in our home product, aided or injured, as you will, by the 
 commercial theatre? For, strange to say, though our women's 
 clubs throughout the country are actively studying modern 
 drama as a product of social and intellectual forces, they are 
 not able to apply the ideas of Sudermann or Hauptmann 
 to their own experience, save in so far as the plays are 
 sexual. 
 
 This is unhealthy; it detaches the theatre from its ethical 
 purpose; it attempts to force condition to adapt itself to 
 an imported morality. In some respects we cannot call it 
 a wrong morality; in other respects we know it is harmful 
 and abnormal. Most of our dramatic hysteria is a result of 
 this detached appreciation of problems that do not concern 
 us, since they come under the jurisdiction of a different 
 social law. We Americans can never fully understand the 
 Gallic spirit for this reason. Emerson and Maeterlinck are 
 of the same spiritual piece, but Maeterlinck came from 
 Emerson. Our adjustment of family life is so different from 
 that of the French that Bourget seems wholly inadequate, 
 so far as general impress is concerned. So it was with Ibsen 
 when he was a "fad," for only our New England women 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 27 
 
 could quite know the terrors of a social conscience, and only 
 our farmers' wives and daughters could be said to resemble 
 in their brooding some of Ibsen's heroines. 
 
 What I wish to emphasize is that at the present time 
 there is no absolute force moulding our theatre into distinct 
 form or purpose, or directing either the actor, the playwright, 
 or the public. When we are serious, then we become imi- 
 tators, and grow excessive in our desire to be thought extreme 
 and powerful. A system of philosophy does not follow from 
 reflected light; a Magda cannot be evolved from an atmos- 
 phere in no way warm to receive her. 
 
 We are splashing around in a rich sea of American human- 
 ity, and we do not know how to swim with the strong current. 
 We either look across the water where they are really crea- 
 ting a body of ideas for the stage, or else we turn back as 
 Carleton did in "Memnon," as Conrad did in "Jack Cade," 
 or as Boker did in nearly all of his dramas, to history, romance 
 and myth. If we mention American history, we stop just at 
 the point where we should begin. Condition is only one 
 phase of native character; it has, nevertheless, so far modi- 
 fied human action as to stamp the American with outward 
 and evident characteristics. This is seen in Frank Norris's 
 novels, and in the sectional literary differences between the 
 North and the South. Newspaper condition, i. e., as the 
 American newspaper sees American condition, is the one 
 original note in our theatre. 
 
 But it is not so original as it is familiar and near to our 
 own experience. That is the one hope of the mediocre activ- 
 ity of the American playwright. There is more verse being 
 written in this country than ever before, but it is not poetry. 
 Yet the increase in jingle poets at least indicates a poetic 
 tendency. So is it with drama; we are writing plays every- 
 where, but even as the inexperienced poet wrote verses to 
 a nightingale, which is never seen in America save at a public 
 
28 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 aviary, so the playwright seeks everywhere but in himself 
 for the material he wishes. 
 
 There was a time when Schiller and Kotzebue influenced 
 the American stage; there was another time when Scribe, 
 Hugo, and Dumas became the models. Then there arrived 
 Wallack and Daly, who, as theatrical managers, did no 
 jot of service to the American playwright, until Bronson 
 Howard, the Dean of our American dramatists, insisted 
 upon being measured on his own merits. Yet, American 
 though he was in interest and intention, Mr. Howard was 
 saturated with French technique, and mth French problems 
 of infidelity. 
 
 I know of no American drama, based on imitation, that 
 has not failed in both respects — to be American and to 
 be drama. And the reason why we lack direction is that 
 while we have had political crises, social upheavals, and 
 economic laws, we have never, save in the days of extreme 
 Puritanism, had spiritual struggle. 
 
 American life is identified with outward show and sign; 
 in that respect we have American drama. All of our insti- 
 tutions are figuring on the stage: Charles Klein periodically 
 and in superficial manner, muck-rakes a corporation. That 
 is sheer journalism. There must be something within a man 
 so firmly connected with his soil — not with his nationality 
 — that if it were severed, all the life-blood of his conviction 
 would turn ansemic. We lack conviction, we are ansemic on 
 our stage, and it were well to seek a remedy. 
 
 In England, there is a school of drama which attempts to 
 supply a stage play , measured according to literary standards; 
 in Ireland, there is evident an impulse which may result 
 also in a powerful and distinctive school. But usually a 
 type of dramatic expression comes from the workshop of 
 one man, individualistic enough in his message, alive enough 
 in his intentness, to override the limitation of his culture 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 29 
 
 and to be affected by his contemporaries or by his reading. 
 Ibsen lured, as the Rat-Wife lured Eyolf, and everyone mis- 
 took his realism for an abortion, when, in reality, it was 
 strong with moral and social purpose. Both he and Tolstoy 
 strove for good, honest ends — the one thoroughly consis- 
 tent, the other contradictory; and both victims of their 
 own self-scourging. 
 
 Not one of our little writers for the theatre to-day has 
 that set purpose, that moral steadfastness. For our drama 
 does not come from within. It is something tangible; it 
 is raw life-stuff (our great hope) needing the craftsman and 
 the seer. 
 
 IV 
 
 It may almost be stated as an aphorism that the critical 
 faculty is usually in advance of the creative faculty. What- 
 ever a man does, as exemplification of his theory, is never an 
 exact illustration of it; there is always a rift in the armor 
 of accomplishment. So it is that we find Ibsen's realism 
 falling at times into well-planned theatricalism ; Maeter- 
 linck's static drama giving way to the full-blooded passion 
 of "Monna Vanna;" Shaw's prefaces surpassing his plays 
 in truth and application; Jones' "Renascence of the English 
 Drama" a clearer arraignment of English conventions 
 than any of his dramas. 
 
 This means that the critical faculty prepares the way, 
 and whenever a dramatist wishes to clear his mind of ob- 
 scurity, he falls into expressions of opinion which usually 
 take form in lectures, talks, or interviews. Only last May, 
 Brieux delivered himself of a long discourse before the Aca- 
 demie Fran9aise, not upon technique which marks such a 
 piece as "Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont," but upon the ten- 
 derness of "L'Abbe Constantin" and its romantic author. 
 Not that a dramatist repudiates his theories, his tastes, his 
 
30 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 critical aim, when he comes to write, but his critical purpose 
 has to be made subservient to the essential purpose of the 
 theatre. 
 
 I have often thought how healthy, how almost juvenile 
 the American dramatist is in his appreciation of external 
 opportunities; how willing he is to set himself any difficult 
 mechanical task for accomplishment on the stage. David 
 Belasco is such a craftsman. But with this creative exuber- 
 ance has arisen the need for analyzing what this big American 
 life really means for stage purposes, how it may be used so 
 as to represent the storm and stress of material growth, with- 
 out destroying the idealism which is the heritage of every 
 nation, and more especially a young one. Many play- 
 wrights have expressed their views to me, and each one of 
 them has advanced beyond his practice and has preached 
 excellently well. 
 
 I always found Bronson Howard to be twice the American 
 as man that he was as playwright. "One of Our Girls," 
 "Saratoga," "Kate," are all French moulds containing stray 
 flecks of native dialogue. From what I know of New York 
 society drama at the time they were written, this was the 
 entertainment most acceptable to the theatre public. But 
 their spirit was hardly as Mr. Howard felt personally about 
 American drama — how it should deal specifically with 
 American conditions and with American types. 
 
 Of all our dramatists, James A. Heme may be said to 
 have come nearest to the soil, doing as much for the theatre 
 as ever W. D. Ho wells has done for literature. Yet, after 
 he had tried some keen-edged realism in "Margaret Fleming" 
 and some evenly-balanced history in "Griffith Davenport," 
 he was obliged to compromise with his public, and to encase 
 his simple motives and his poignantly simple emotions in a 
 melodramatic setting. But even then he did not forsake his 
 critical theory; he held to the natural method of dialogue, 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 31 
 
 hewing out of native character what later and lesser dram- 
 atists hewed out of a half-understanding of Ibsen. It is a 
 strange instance, this, of Mr. Heme's sensing Ibsen before 
 his day. Yet, though in a way he could not practice what 
 he preached, James A. Heme continued to preach, and his 
 statements in lectures and interviews are in advance of liis 
 actual stage work. And his distinctions were always un- 
 erringly ethical. "If a disagreeable truth," he wrote, "is not 
 also an essential, it should never be used in art." Mr. Heme 
 realized certain didactic touches in "Margaret Fleming," 
 but he felt his manner of characterization w^as right. It was 
 simply ahead of its time, and only the critical outlook can 
 travel so far. That is why "Shore Acres" followed rather 
 than preceded "Margaret Fleming." 
 
 Now, there is one essential our American dramatist has 
 fully realized — that the stage must have action and depict 
 a human story. From American life he has learned the one, 
 since its chief characteristic is movement; and from the 
 American newspaper he has gleaned the other, since the 
 motive power of our journalism is the scare-line which tells 
 something at a glance. In a democracy, the man who studies 
 his public as he rides downtown in the cars will find it difficult 
 to reach any collective point of view of the crowed. He finds, 
 if he is writing a play, that no theory of his will transcend 
 the popular test of all successful drama: does it get 
 across the "foots," does it appeal to the heart, does it 
 interest? 
 
 This applies to all types of drama for all types of people. 
 It holds good for all quality of amusement at the theatre. 
 For beneath the cuticle of culture, we are all akin; the ele- 
 mental make-up of emotion is the same for all; only the 
 method of expressing this emotion differs. While he was 
 at the height of his melodrama days, Owen Davis — always 
 more or less a student of the peculiar clientele he had for 
 
32 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model" and " Convict 999" — 
 came from studying his audiences with this conclusion: 
 
 "I soon found that humanity was the key-note of their 
 interest; that the elemental passions appealed to under a 
 coating of sugar by the Broadway dramatist were the 
 same as those aroused by the Third Avenue playwright with- 
 out the coating. In all plays, whether given in the two- 
 dollar houses, or in the less imposing ten-twenty-thirty cent 
 places of amusement, there must be at bottom some big 
 dominant human emotion. On Broadway you must hide 
 the springs that move your puppets — and be subtle, moving 
 toward your climax circuitously." 
 
 So it was that Owen Davis, graduate from Harvard, laid 
 aside his theories, and, determined in the type of "thriller" 
 wanted of him, made a success of his venture. Only now is 
 he beginning to do the serious work which he has aimed to 
 do for many years; but his critical faculty showed him which 
 way Al Woods was developing. And as long as five years 
 ago he predicted that "Chinatown Charlie" would be for- 
 saken by hordes for such subtle vulgarity as "The Girl in 
 the Taxi." 
 
 A man's reach should exceed his grasp, and there is no 
 doubt that there are high planes of aspiration among allj our 
 dramatists. Like Jones, who fbst wrote "The Silver King" 
 — arrant melodrama — before he felt justified in dealing 
 with problems, they speak in broad, and always in com- 
 parative terms, regarding American drama, and they show 
 very well their fears and pride. 
 
 It was a long while before Charles Klein was received by 
 his public as a critic of American condition, even though 
 years before the advent of "The Lion and the Mouse," "The 
 Third Degree," and "The Gamblers," he had written "The 
 District Attorney" and "The Honorable John Grigsby." 
 Not many readers identify his name as the librettist for " El 
 
Photo, by Otlo Sarony Co. 
 
 Charles Klein 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 33 
 
 Capitan'* and "Red Feather," yet he had to relinquish his 
 ideas for a while in order to pave the way for popular au- 
 thority to state them. 
 
 Many talks with Mr. IGein only impressed me more and 
 more with the fact that even an undisciplined critical per- 
 spective tends beyond the point where it would be expe- 
 dient to practice. Mr. Klein's philosophy of life is much 
 clearer in his conversation than in his plays. Maybe, as 
 he says, the public obtains in these plays of his a point of 
 view that filters through his individuality. "That there is 
 an American drama," he once said to me, " is as certain as 
 that there is an American life. But we are in the process of 
 adjustment; we have reached and are in the experimental 
 stage. Our drama is forming. In the near future, there will 
 arise a social conflict; and the East will struggle with the 
 West. From this opposition, a great drama will be born." 
 
 But Mr. Klein in his social and economic history is rather 
 undisciplined. "The Lion and the Mouse" and "The 
 Gamblers" show this. The critical faculty must have a care 
 how far it goes without intellectual justification. Unwar- 
 ranted statements from our dramatists, such as fill the 
 daily press, show the need for a body of ideas that are more 
 sanely optimistic. I shall try to epitomize Mr. Klein's 
 critical outlook as concisely and as faithfully as possible. 
 
 " It is true that the public wishes psychology," he declared, 
 "but no half-lights; that is Ibsen's treatment. There is 
 much melodrama in life, but not all of it is the conflict of 
 violent emotion. We often see the effects without the causes, 
 but the American mind, to be convinced, must have both. 
 Mellow light, mere shadowgraph, will not convince. That 
 is partly the reason Bernard Shaw's influence, to my mind, 
 is negative; he tears down ideals without building, and his 
 ruthlessness results in reaction. The denial of a higher 
 truth always creates disgust. 
 
34 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 " Both Shaw and Ibsen only tell half-truths. To be an 
 incomparable technician is not everything, but whereas Ibsen 
 assails what we hold in abhorrence, Shaw turns to what is 
 sacred. Goethe dubbed Mephistopheles 'the spirit of 
 negation/ but it takes a fairly good comedian to wear a 
 Mephistopheles* make-up. I cannot believe that a man, 
 like Shaw, who denies everything, from pure love to pure 
 music, is a public beneficence; only the man who affirms 
 what is good tells the whole truth." 
 
 When a dramatist talks aloud in this fashion, he is in a way 
 sending out that part of him which in stage dialogue might 
 be considered didactic. One may dare much in criticism; 
 it is supposed to question art in terms of far- vision; it is 
 supposed to weigh causes in the light of far-reaching effects. 
 That is where the constructive ability of the critic gives him 
 claim to imagination of a high creative order. It represents 
 the impulse back of the writer — the impulse to be a good 
 citizen. For the dramatist, above all other professional and 
 artistic persons, must be a strong, virile citizen. 
 
 "In American life," Mr. Klein continued, "the important 
 feature is to emulate, to imitate. Everyone is striving to be 
 rich; in the instinct, in the will to be rich, we surely find the 
 great dramatic action. This race for the material does not 
 bar metaphysical considerations. Avarice is constantly in 
 conflict with principle, with drama as the result, since drama 
 always spells conflict. Desire in American condition grapples 
 with obstructing circumstances, with the individual as the 
 centre of the vortex. In trying to express these thoughts we 
 all have to resort to verbs of action. 
 
 "A condition is not a problem; after all, it is only a con- 
 dition, but somewhere in it is the conflict. If the dramatist 
 portray the condition, drama is the outward expression of 
 his views. The American public is guided by instinct along 
 the lines of optimism. We are in process of adjustment with 
 
THE ESSENTIALS OF AN AMERICAN PLAY 35 
 
 the classes. Some day the Enghsh will undoubtedly undergo 
 a readjustment, but now they are presumably fixed. The 
 very fact that we Americans are finding ourselves, constitutes 
 drama. The American tragedy lies in the fact that we can- 
 not find what we want; the English people have realized 
 that what they have found is empty. Our greatest tragedy 
 will be when we wake up to the truth that our illusions are 
 illusions. In fact, the tragedy of the whole world, a 
 tragedy wherein the element of hope is seen in the very fact 
 that we search for something higher, is the almost dis- 
 couraging effort to find the truth, the ideal. Europe is de- 
 generating in moral tone because she has no hope. I glean 
 from Gibbon that when sexual instinct absorbs a nation as 
 it appears to absorb France, there is very little room left 
 for the development of any other instinct. The healthy 
 part of us is that the American mind is not yet so absorbed." 
 
 Now, in recording these views of Mr. Klein's, I do not 
 wish to leave the impression that they do not in some small 
 way appear in his dramas. I give them as the unified ex- 
 pression of the average American interest in dramatic con- 
 dition; for the dramatist does not have to be a student of 
 drama. If he possesses the instinct, if he keeps in touch with 
 the theatre conditions around him, if he reads and sees plays, 
 that is all he needs. Unconsciously, he senses the evolution 
 of form; unconsciously he shapes his material in that mould 
 to which his good taste, his interest, and his motive lead 
 him. 
 
 But the dramatist, if he is anything of a craftsman, has 
 to know something more than the mere letter of his trade. 
 Though he never use economics, sociology, biology, or kin- 
 dred subjects, he is the richer for a knowledge which allows 
 his imagination to explore in fields closed to untutored minds. 
 No dramatist in his play can say — such shall be the moral 
 verdict, such shall be the solution of poverty, such shall be 
 
36 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the future of America. But the critic can say to the dramatist 
 — such will be the moral verdict, such may be the solution 
 of poverty, such tends to be the future of America when 
 you come to it. Our drama needs knowledge upon which 
 to develop a rich imagination. 
 
^^mmm 
 
 Photo, by Pach Bros. 
 
 KiCHARD Harding Davis 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TREND OF AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 
 
 I 
 
 The amusement world is large enough to foster repertory 
 houses, for America cannot afford to let dramatic material 
 go to waste. Certain excellent quality in the satire of 
 Charles Hoyt's farces should be rehabilitated, and there is 
 no doubt that Edward Harrigan's Irish fun was fraught with a 
 genuineness that should be perpetuated. Professor Matthews 
 once spoke of Weber and Fields and their products as the 
 Aristophanes period of American drama, yet it is as impos- 
 sible to perpetuate the peculiar genius of these two as to 
 re-create the unctuousness of the elder Hackett, the geniality 
 of John Gilbert, or the humor of John T. Raymond. 
 
 The time has come for stock companies; these institu- 
 tions are the real dramatic storehouses of the country. But 
 Daniel Frohman, in his "Memories of a Manager," is far 
 from believing that a return to the old-time system can be 
 effected. Repertory companies reproduce successes of 
 only a few seasons past, like Davis's "Soldiers of Fortune" 
 and Thomas's "Arizona." They occasionally take stand- 
 ardized plays, like Lottie Blair Parker's "Way Down East" 
 (1897) or "Under Southern Skies" (1901), and Hke C. T. 
 Dazey's "In Old Kentucky," familiar to everyone. In the 
 face of theatrical circuits, however, audiences are more 
 likely to want the success of the season immediately past — 
 a season which wins for the play the headline that "it ran 
 
38 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 for one hundred and fifty consecutive nights in New York." 
 Yet such advertising, though it dupe the provincial theatre- 
 goer, is not always true, for, as pointed out in a pamphlet 
 on "The Amusement Situation in the City of Boston,"^ 
 "hardly a bulletin-board announcing a New York run but 
 brazenly and boldly lies about its extent. Ten or twelve 
 weeks in New York (several of which were very probably in 
 Brooklyn or in remotely situated theatres) is advertised on 
 the road as 'One Year in New York,* or *300 Nights on 
 Broadway.' A season of thirty weeks (divided among the 
 same groups of theatres) is advertised on the road as * Seventy 
 weeks in New York,' or '490 days in New York.' More 
 conscientious managers actually run their plays in the 
 smaller New York theatres week after week at considerable 
 loss to themselves, in order to get some excuse for sending 
 them upon the road as a claimed ' Broadway Success,' with 
 a record for a long run!" 
 
 I quote this as authentic evidence of the fact that with the 
 increase of theatrical business, the road has either become 
 a place for trying out, or for duping. The manager peddles 
 his wares, unless he has no wares to peddle; then he falls 
 back upon the scrap heap, out of which he builds himself 
 a repertory. 
 
 These stock company houses are good things, even though 
 they tend unmercifully to overwork the actor. They are 
 excellent measure of the vitality of a play, and, except in 
 the instances of special revivals, they are the only havens 
 where the theatre-goer may hope to keep in touch with the 
 
 1 Based on a study of the theatres for ten weeks, from Nov. 28, 
 1909, to Feb. 5, 1910. This is a report of the Drama Committee 
 of the Twentieth Century Club, of that city. The theatre receives 
 social treatment, also, in a more pretentious way, in a pamphlet: 
 "The Exploitation of Pleasure: A Study of Commercial Recrea- 
 tions in New York City," by Michael M. Davis, Jr., published by 
 the Department of Child Hygiene, of the Russell Sage Foundation. 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 39 
 
 past. When the New Theatre was contemplating the 
 revival of a few old American dramas, it might have been 
 well had the Director kept his eye upon these repertory 
 centres. 
 
 It would seem, to go a step further, that the time has 
 even arrived for us to renovate some of the popular plays 
 of the past. Robson and Crane became noted in their pro- 
 duction of Howard's "The Henrietta;" and "The Young 
 Mrs. Winthrop," by the same author, still has appeal and 
 literary flavor. These plays are old-fashioned. — not in their 
 plots, not in their essential human interest, but in their 
 contemporaneousness. This contemporaneousness should 
 be made contemporary, unless the play is dependent upon 
 the atmosphere of the past. 
 
 B. E. Woolf's "The Mighty Dollar" (1875), with literally 
 "millions in it," used to draw crowded houses, quite as 
 much on account of the amusing characteristics of Judge 
 Bar dwell Slote, M.C., from Cohosh district, as because of 
 the acting of W. J. Florence. Mulberry Sellers, the famous 
 vehicle for John T. Raymond, made Mark Twain's "The 
 rilded Age" — a play with ample humor, and worth reno- 
 -.ating. Professor Matthews, always ready with a literary 
 - iialogy, would connect the latter play with Jonson's "The 
 .)ivill is an Ass" (1616). Maybe Mr. Clemens sought to 
 icnovate the Ehzabethans, even as CoUey Cibber rewrote 
 jhakespeare, but there is enough good matter in Sellers to 
 have a revival, after the manuscript has been adequately 
 reinforced by a skilled craftsman. 
 
 This much we know: that there are no available copies 
 of "The Mighty Dollar" or of "The Gilded Age," and that 
 they should be in type. Their historical importance lies 
 in the attempt they made to create the American for the 
 stage. They were eccentric, in the sense that Weber and 
 Fields were eccentric, and they depended largely upon the 
 
40 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST^ 
 
 genius of the actor. They were built parts, in the sense 
 that Dundreary^ under the fashioning of E. A. Sothern's 
 nimble wit, was a growth from forty-seven lines. It is my 
 behef that the old-fashioned conception of the American 
 would be as amusing to present generations — even though 
 out of date — as the conventional Englishman in Dundreary, 
 which was revived by Sothern, the son. But, in order to 
 retain some vestige of originality, despite the evanescent 
 character of much of the dialogue, it should be made incum- 
 bent upon the author or the producer to publish the play as 
 originally conceived. 
 
 It may be claimed with justice that such actors as Sothern, 
 Irving, Jefferson, and Mansfield have created marvellous 
 acting parts; but there is much doubt as to whether the 
 public of the older generation would accept Sothern's son 
 as Dundreary, Jefferson's son as Rip Van Winkle, and 
 Irving's son as Mathias in "The Bells." They are commen- 
 dable substitutes, but they are in no way just as good. 
 Even now, there is prejudice in the minds of those who have 
 seen Booth, as though lingering memory will better theat- 
 rical condition! Yet one cannot discount the prejudices 
 of an audience, and there is ample cause to believe that 
 were an actor to play "Beau Brummel" or "A Parisian 
 Romance," ripe upon Mansfield's death, he would suffer 
 in comparison. But must we, because of a prejudice, sacri- 
 fice plays that are effective theatrically, whatever the time 
 or season? There is life in all success — for success comes 
 from general approval, and the public heart is much the 
 same always. 
 
 I am speaking entirely of dramas that in their day have 
 created wonderful theatrical impressions. There is only one 
 guide a manager should follow in the matter of repertory: 
 renovation must be carried on in the light of modern tech- 
 nique, but in a manner wholly consistent with the tenor of 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 41 
 
 the piece. Social drama is constructed on the Ibsen pattern; 
 therefore, the screws must be tightened throughout "The 
 Young Mrs. Winthrop," originally modeled on Scribe. The 
 art of renovation is even more of an art than that of trans- 
 lation. 
 
 This suggestion of renovation seems both startling and 
 humorous; in it also there is an element of danger. No one 
 wishes to see a modernized Rembrandt, and for my part I 
 deplore amended Mil tons and simplified Scotts. But only 
 in an art which is fluid would I consider renovation. For 
 all dramatists know, as the trite saying goes, that plays are 
 never written; that they are rewritten. And they might 
 just as well be revamped in 1911 as in 1875. Yet, without 
 the sanction of the playwright, without his personal super- 
 vision, faith must be kept with the original, and that original 
 must be published. 
 
 II 
 
 If one should be asked, however, to frame a list of Ameri- 
 can plays suitable for immediate revival, the task would be 
 disillusionizing. For it would show that previous to 1870, 
 the larger part of American drama only had interest his- 
 torically and histrionically. It was either history or the 
 actor that encouraged native product — a product cast in 
 foreign mould from the very outset.^ The way of reviewing 
 the past in American drama is simply to assume points of 
 view that will accord with a consistent grouping of the many 
 plays. The tendencies are much more evident and (much 
 more distinctive than the national traits. 
 
 For the very earliest theatrical records indicate that our 
 very earliest audiences were accustomed to such comedies 
 
 ' For consideration of the stage "To-day and Yesterday," see 
 my "Famous Actor-Families in America." 
 
42 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 as Beaumont and Fletcher's "Rule a Wife and Have a 
 Wife," broad in humor and Elizabethan in diction. In fact, 
 when the drama first came to America, and began its exist- 
 ence at the Williamsburg Theatre, under the patronage of Go v- 
 emoT Dinwiddie (September 5, 1752), American civilization 
 was thoroughly English. If the drama started in the South, 
 it was because the Cavalier spirit was ready to receive it, 
 because the Southern landed proprietor, a devotee of Addi- 
 son and Steele, believed in the luxury of living rather than 
 in making constant preparation for death. The drama 
 forced its way in the North, despite the Puritan prejudice in 
 New England and the Quaker feeling in Philadelphia. Yet 
 we cannot quite blame the qualms of the latter city when its 
 first theatre, opened on April 15, 1754, had for its bill,Rowe's 
 tragedy, "The Fair Penitent." Certain it was that, apart 
 from Shakespeare Cibberized, the early theatre-going taste 
 was atune to Congreve and Farquhar, while the glory of 
 Garrick stamped all acting.^ 
 
 Our first historians of the drama record amateur perform- 
 ances as early as 1749; Otway and Addison were the 
 favored dramatists. But American theatrical enterprise 
 started with William Hallam, whose company constituted 
 the first real "road" organization. This history applies 
 strictly to the rise and progress of the theatre; the type of 
 play, which had nothing whatever to do with the spirit of 
 America, reflected the colonial taste. Some people there 
 are who would so far stretch a point as to claim that for a 
 performance of Garrick's farce, "Lethe," a prologue was 
 prepared, according to the custom of the day, and that this 
 
 ^ The reader is referred to George O. Seilhamer's invaluable 
 "History of the American Theatre" (1888); to Dunlap's "History 
 of the American Theatre;" to Joseph Ireland's "Records of the 
 New York Stage from 1750 to 1860"^ and to T. Allston Brown's 
 "History of the New York Stage from the First Performance in 
 1732 to 1901." 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 43 
 
 prologue represents the first bit of writing done in America 
 for the theatre. I do not believe that an arduous search 
 through the provincial columns of the Pennsylvania Gazette 
 or of the New York Post-boy would bring to light any hidden 
 American dramatist before Royall Tyler appeared upon the 
 scene; that is, one whose distinct aim was to display the 
 American spirit. 
 
 By the time our colonists became accustomed to "pro- 
 fane stage plays/' the controversial period of American 
 history had arrived, and when the British reached New 
 York and Philadelphia, they turned the playhouses to their 
 own pleasure, the redcoats becoming actors for the oc- 
 casion. There was a drop curtain in existence for a long 
 while after the Revolution, which tradition claims was 
 painted by Major Andre. 
 
 In our search for dramatic activity in America, it were 
 well to dispose in a word of certain forms of writing done 
 for the stage. Washington was an inveterate theatre-goer, 
 and when the Continental Congress closed the playhouses 
 on October 24, 1774, he was very much perturbed. So that, 
 after his death, the theatres paid him a tribute by having 
 the leading actress, "in the character of the Genius of 
 America weeping over the Tomb of her beloved Hero," 
 recite "A Monody on the Death of General Washington." 
 Certainly we cannot in any way regard General Burgoyne 
 as an American playwright, even though his farce, "The 
 Blockade of Boston," dealt with an American subject. But 
 this farce from the British pen, in which the Continental 
 Army was derided, drew from Mrs. Mercy Warren a counter- 
 thrust in "The Blockheads," a burlesque polemic.^ 
 
 It will be seen from such entries that during the Revolu- 
 tion the theatre was a place for satire, smacking of oratory. 
 
 ^ See "Beginnings of American Dramatic Literature," Paul 
 Leicester Ford, New Eng. Mag., Feb.^, 1894, n.s. 9: 673-87. 
 
44 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 The product came from the heat of the moment. One 
 might just as well claim that the references to America in 
 Chapman's "Eastward Hoe" or in Shakespeare's "The 
 Tempest," or that Governor Berkeley's dramas were Ameri- 
 can, as that these controversial pieces were either plays or, 
 strictly speaking, American. For example, Paul Leicester 
 Ford points to "The Battle of Brooklyn," a play by an un- 
 known author, and, despite its ridicule of Washington, 
 doubts whether its origin is British or American. We 
 find many expressions concerning the fall of British tyranny, 
 and as early as 1753, one Le Blanc de Villeneuve wrote " Le 
 Pere Indian." We find the students of Yale, under their 
 ministerial president, presenting Barnabas Bidwell's "The 
 Mercenary Match" (1785). In another direction, an ac- 
 tivity strictly modern in its haste has been noted in these 
 words by the historian, Clapp : " It was the custom in the 
 earlier days of the theatre to signalize passing events by such 
 appropriate notice as the resources of the stage would permit. 
 The proposed launch of the frigate * Constitution,' which was 
 set down for September 20, 1797, was regarded by Manager 
 Hodgkinson as an event worthy of his attention. In forty- 
 eight hours he completed a very passable piece, and an- 
 nounced its performance." 
 
 These several records will show that the first definite 
 tendency to note in American drama is that the subject- 
 matter, when it drew upon American life and manners, 
 arranged itself in accord with periods in American history. 
 There were, for example, definite Indian plays,^ some smack- 
 
 * In an article on "The American Play," by Laurence Hutton 
 (Lippincott, 37: 289-98, March, 1886), the following picturesque 
 titles are recorded : ' ' Sassacus ; or, The Indian Wife "; " Kairrissah ' ' ; 
 **Oroloosa"; Outalassie"; ''The Pawnee Chief"; "Onylda; or, 
 The Pequot Maid"; ''Ontiata; or, The Indian Heroine"; "Osceola"; 
 "Oroonoka"; "Tuscatomba"; "Wacousta"; "Tutoona"; "Yem- 
 assee"; "Wissahickon." See also A. E. Lancaster's "Historical 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 45 
 
 ing of the aboriginal. But to-day, the only ones that strike 
 the memory are John Brougham's clever " Po-ca-hon-tas/' 
 John Augustus Stone's "Metamora; or, The Last of the 
 Wampanoags," and the recent attempt made by Mary Austin 
 in " The Arrow Maker." There were Revolutionary dramas, 
 ranging from John D. Burke's "Bunker Hill; or, The Death 
 of Gen. Warren" (1798) and Dunlap's "Andre" (1798) 
 to W. loor's " The Battle of the Eutaw Springs, and Evac- 
 uation of Charleston; or. The Glorious 14th of December,- 
 1782," first presented in Charleston during 1817. The 
 American historical plays of this period were strictly patri- 
 otic, as the titles will imply; they were heroic, bombastic, 
 and, as Lancaster has noted, filled with " romantic traditions, 
 local annals, individual eccentricity, temporary sensation, 
 spread-eagle patriotism, and redskin melodrama." It is 
 enough to record the heroic measures of Hugh Henry Brack- 
 enridge's "The Battle of Bunker Hill" (1776), or the same 
 author's dramatic elegy on "The Death of General Mont- 
 gomery at the Siege of Quebec" (1777). James Nelson 
 Barker wrote "The Indian Princess" (1808) and "Super- 
 stition" (1823), and M. M. Noah tried his hand at "Marion; 
 or. The Hero of Lake George." There is no end to the plays 
 based on incidents of the Revolution or of the War of 1812.^ 
 
 American Plays," Chautauquan, 31: 359-64 (1900). James Rees 
 declares that the reaction against Indian plays began in 1846. 
 G. W. P. Custis wrote two Indian dramas: "The Indian Prophecy" 
 (1828) and "Pocahontas" (1830). 
 
 1 Note for example C. E. Grice's "The Battle of New Orleans"; 
 George Cockings' "The Conquest of Canada"; S. B. H. Judah's 
 "A Tale of Lexington"; Oliver B. Bunce's "Love in '76" (a social 
 rather than a war play); and countless others that find record in 
 Oscar Wegelin's "Early American Plays (1714-1830)"; in Robert 
 F. Roden's "Later American Plays (1831-1900)"; in an "Index to 
 American Poetry and Plays in the Collection of C. Fiske Harris" 
 (1874); in "More Early American Plays," Ldt. Collect, 2:82-84; in 
 published accounts of famous collections of plays owned by the late 
 Thos. J. McKee (144 plays); in the Brinley American Library 
 
46 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 x\nd the striking characteristic of many of these plays was 
 that in them representations of live historical personages 
 were introduced. When Victor Mapes's "Captain Barring- 
 ton" (1903) actually brought the figure of Washington on 
 the boards, people showed surprise, and, to the credit of the 
 actor playing the role, they went away further surprised 
 that their patriotic sensibilities were not shocked, for 
 historic characters on the stage flavor of the Eden Musee. 
 
 But at close range, as in the instance of Royall Tyler, our 
 first American dramatist, in contradistinction to Robert 
 Hunter, whose " x\ndroboros " was the first dramatic piece 
 printed in America (1714), there was no hesitancy regarding 
 historical representation or political allusions. Concerning 
 Dunlap's heroic blank- verse drama of "Andr^," as Pro- 
 fessor Matthews has pointed out, the piece was produced on 
 March 30, 1798, with Arnold and Washington still alive, and 
 close upon the incident of Andre's hanging in 1780. Wash- 
 ington was introduced as one of the characters. The type of 
 play marking the Revolution and the War of 1812 was one 
 of feeling, in which Royalist and American bandied words. 
 
 Mr. Ford calls attention to the fact that as early as 1690 
 the African slave was dealt with in a drama by one Afara 
 Behn, a play called "The Widow Ranter; or. Bacon in 
 Virginia." But the most portentous drama on the subject 
 proved to be the dramatization of Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin." The novel was published in 1851, and was 
 almost immediately prepared for the stage by George L. 
 Aitkin, and first presented at the Troy Museum in 1852. 
 This popularity undoubtedly suggested to Dion Boucicault 
 the spirit for his "The Octoroon; or. Life in Louisiana," 
 which was produced toward the end of 1859. 
 
 catalogue; in the Beck and Duyckinck Collections (New York 
 Public Library); and in a collection owned by the Brown Univer- 
 sity Library. 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 47 
 
 These types never die out. Dunlap's "Andre" may be 
 balanced by Clyde Fitch's "Major Andre"; J. N. Barker's 
 "Superstition" by Herman Hagerdorn's version of "The 
 Witch"; "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Edward Sheldon's 
 "The Nigger." The differences to be found in them lie 
 in their several techniques, and in their economic and social 
 approaches. If they are not heard of to-day, it is because 
 their vitality was momentary. Take such titles as Charles 
 Gayler's "Bull Run"; as "The Federal Spy; or, PauHne of 
 the Potomac" and "Union Prisoners; or, the Patriot's 
 Daughter." They were hammered out in moments of 
 heat, and possessed none of the healthy value of Gillette's 
 "Secret Service." 
 
 The next characteristic" to note jn American drama 
 influence of Germany upon the theatre, not only with the 
 plays of Schiller, but more particularly with the prolific 
 Kotzebue's (1761-1819) examples of melodrama. We 
 "know, for instance, how thoroughly influenced William 
 Dunlap^ (1766-1839) became by such pieces; how prone he 
 was to be interested in drama of the type of "Douglas "and 
 "Venice Preserved." Hence, a large part of his time was 
 spent in translating Kotzebue,^ after he had gone to the 
 trouble of mastering German for that special purpose. 
 Dunlap was our first dramatic manipulator; he was the 
 first theatre manager to illustrate how readily foreign mate- 
 rial might be turned to American advantage, without costing 
 
 much.^ 
 
 « 
 
 1 See Publications of the Dunlap Society. Much valuable 
 material on Dunlap is owned by the New York Historical Society. 
 See "Publications," vol. 14, vol. 15, vol. 24, vol. 30, for Dunlap's 
 diary. 
 
 2 Charles Smith (b. 1768) likewise translated Kotzebue. See 
 Wegelin. 
 
 ^ See Frederick H. Wilkin's "Early Influence of German Litera- 
 ture in America," Americana Germanica, vol. 3, no. 2, 1899, 
 
48 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 It is strange that Tyler (1758-1826) on one hand, and that 
 Dunlap on the other, did not at first approach the theatre 
 with any direct intention of writing for it. In fact, the 
 former, graduate of Harvard, was a soldier and a lawyer, 
 and had never been to the theatre in his life until sent to 
 New York on diplomatic service relating to Shays' Rebel- 
 lion. Then it was that the stage took hold of him, and 
 within a few weeks he had written "The Contrast" (1787), 
 crude but pleasing to the tastes of Wignell, low comedian. 
 Tyler seems to have been quite indifferent to his success, 
 though he immediately proceeded to write the libretto for 
 a comic opera, "May-day in Town; or, New York in an 
 Uproar," and some years after, in 1797, he was ready with 
 "A Good Spec; or, Land in the Moon," dealing with the 
 Yazoo scandal in Georgia. 
 
 During this time, Dunlap was in Europe, and had heard 
 nothing of Tyler's favor with "The Contrast." He had 
 been studying art under Benjamin West, and though he 
 could boast of a liking for the theatre in London, withKemble, 
 Mrs. Siddons, Palmer, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Abingdon, and Miss 
 Farren in the ascendancy, he might not be considered to 
 have been in the least stage-struck. But Tyler fired his 
 enthusiasm, and he immediately began on that career which 
 was to cover several decades, and to win for him the name of 
 "Father of the American Drama." His first play — dis- 
 counting his youthful dramatization of " The Arabian Nights," 
 — was "Modest Soldier; or. Love in New York," and was 
 never mounted. During 1789, "The Father; or, American 
 
 pp. 103-205. Note also the following: C. F. Brede's "Schiller on the 
 Philadelphia Stage, to the year 1830 "; W. H. Carruth's " Schiller 
 and America"; E. C. Parry's "Schiller in America." Also read 
 Kuno Francke's "Schiller's Message to Modern Life," Atlantic, 95: 
 611-16, See Ch. Rabany's "Kotzebue: sa Vie et son Temps," 
 Paris, 1893; also a dissertation by Walter Sellier on "Kotzebue in 
 England." 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 49 
 
 Shandy ism" was given at the New York John Street Theatre 
 
 — a play which was revised in 1807 under the title of "Father 
 of an Only Child." It was after this that he became man- 
 ager of a theatre — at first with Hallam and Hodgkinson, 
 but afterwards by himself.^ 
 
 There is a character in "The Contrast" which is a definite 
 drawing of Yankee eccentricities, and may be taken as the 
 first effort of an American dramatist to be subtly American. 
 It suggests another tendency in the subject-matter we are 
 tracing: that effort to catch the national traits marking 
 the American people. The general fault in this type of 
 play has been very well stated by Professor Matthews i^ 
 
 " An apt epigram is afloat — ascribed to Mr. Boucicault 
 
 — to the effect that ' All that the Americans seem to recog- 
 nize as dramatic here is the caricature of character, and that 
 is what the successful plays are — caricature of eccentric 
 character set in a weak dramatic framework.' This, like 
 most epigrams, is a smart setting of a half-truth. Ameri- 
 cans recognize the character through the caricature, accepting 
 the latter only for lack of the former. The want is want of 
 art on the part of the authors." 
 
 But though such further efforts as those of Samuel Wood- 
 worth in "The Forest Rose; or, American Farmers" (1825) 
 
 1 In the Dunlap Soc. edition of "The Father; or, American 
 Shandyism," with an introduction by Thos J. McKee, there is a 
 complete bibliography of sixty-three plays; see pp. x-xi. During 
 1806, Dunlap, having retired from active theatre work, wrote his 
 history of the theatre, and then published four volumes comprising 
 fifteen of his plays; he also resumed his work as an artist. An 
 excellent picture of Dunlap forms the frontispiece for Wegelin's 
 "Early American Plays." See also the Dunlap Soc. edition of 
 "Andre," edited by Brander Matthews (1887). Tyler's "The 
 Contrast" was reprinted by the Dunlap Soc, in 1887. For a por- 
 trait of Tyler, see New Eng. Mag., 1894, n.s., 9: 675. 
 
 2 "The American on the Stage," Century, 18: 321-33, July, 187&. 
 See also Laurence Hutton's "The American Play," Lippincott, 37: 
 289-98, March, 1886. 
 
50 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 may be regarded in the historical evolution, the Yankee 
 came, not by way of literary dramatic expression, but by 
 way of eccentric American acting. If one should desire the 
 real cause for the American type, it would be necessary to 
 examine into the nature and temperament of the comedians, 
 George H. Hill and James H. Hackett.^ The fact is, Hackett 
 assumed the role of Jonathan Ploughboy in Woodworth's 
 pastoral, and then, being identified with things American, 
 set to work to create such characterizations as Rij:) Van 
 Winkle, Col. Nimrod Wildfire in James K. Paulding's "The 
 Lion of the West" (1831), — which proved to be so popular 
 that Bayle Bernard introduced the same character in a 
 drama entitled "The Kentuckian," — and three Dutch Gov- 
 ernors, in a play of that title, which Bernard dramatized 
 from Irving's "Knickerbocker History." 
 
 It was the genius of the actors, therefore,.j^at encouraged 
 the American type. Their ability to create an accent, as 
 broad and as humorous as their French or Irish, resulted in 
 a following for the eccentric in drama. Hackett's Yankee 
 Solomon Swap, and his Horse-shoe Robinson, based on John 
 P. Kennedy's novel, were dependent absolutely upon the 
 live personality of the player. Anyone reading J. S. 
 Jones' "The People's Lawyer," ^ in which occurs the char- 
 acter of Solon Shingle, a country teamster, would hardly 
 draw from it what audiences drew from the work of John 
 E. Owens, or of George H. Hill when it was first played at 
 the Boston National, in 1839. The required costume of 
 Solon would alone measure the broadness of the caricature: 
 "Dark drab old-fashioned surtout with capes. Sheep's 
 
 ^ See my "Famous Actor-Families in America" for a chapter on 
 "The Hacketts." In the same volume, under "The Jeffersons," 
 will be found traced the evolution of "Rip Van Winkle." See 
 French's Standard Drama, 174, for Burke's version. 
 
 2 French's Standard Drama, 248. See also in the same series, 
 173, "The Vermont Wool-dealer," a farce. 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 51 
 
 grey trowsers, lead colored striped vest, old style black 
 stock, cow-hide boots, broad-brimmed low-crowned hat, 
 bald-headed flaxen wig." The same latitude is to be found 
 in C. A. Logan's "Yankee Land'' ^ which, produced at the 
 Park Theatre in 1834, introduced Hackett as Lot Sap 
 Sago. 
 
 Tom Taylor, quick to fathom the popular appeal, now 
 prepared " Our American Cousin," in which Asa Trenchard, 
 the rough, whole-souled Yankee, was pitted against Dun- 
 dreary. This was as surely the outcome of Hackett's Yankee 
 victories as Davy Crockett was the successor of Nimrod Wild- 
 fire. 
 
 The land resounded with the Yankee brogue, or with 
 local eccentricities, North^ South, East, and West.^ The 
 first of Lowell's "Biglow Papers" appeared in 1846 ; Mark 
 Twain fixed indelibly life on the Mississippi River in the 
 early '50's; Bret Harte, in 1854, went to California to catch 
 the mountain dialect and the mountain manner. In the 
 South, there was a whole line of humorists, including Joseph 
 G. Baldwin, Augustus B. Longstreet, W. T. Thompson, and 
 J. J. Hooper, who caught the eccentric character of the Black 
 Belt. As far as the stage was concerned, a good actor 
 could make a bad play go, but, because of the flimsy material, 
 the play ceased with the actor. Playgoers understand, for 
 example, what Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's 
 "The Gilded Age" suffered from the hands of George B. 
 Dinsmore, who, unauthorized, put Colonel Sellers in a play. 
 Litigation ensued, and the manuscript reverted to Mr. 
 Clemens, who touched it up, but John T. Raymond alone 
 
 ^ French's Minor Drama, 202. 
 
 2 Modern instances of typal books from which successful drama- 
 tizations have been made are plentiful; for example, Annie Hagen 
 Rice's "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" and Edward Noyes 
 Westcott's "David Harum." 
 
52 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 made Sellers.^ According to Howells, who wrote of it in 
 1875, the play was "scarcely more than a sketch, a frame- 
 work almost as naked as that which the Italians used to clothe 
 on with their commedia d'arte; and it [was] as unlike good 
 literature as many other excellent acting plays. ... [It was] 
 true, in its broad way, to American conditions, and [was] 
 a fair and just satire upon our generally recognized social 
 and political corruptions." ^ 
 
 Such social satire, slightly vulgarized, was to be found in 
 B. E. Woolf's"The Mighty Dollar" (1875), which, as we have 
 said, W. J. Florence made so famous by his characterization 
 of Judge Bardwell Slote, a speculative drama whose modern 
 counterpart some critics detected in W. H. Crane's delin- 
 eation of Hannibal Rivers in "The Senator" (1890). These 
 national types narrowed down to local idols, and no more 
 popular character was known to the stage of 1848 than Mose, 
 a New York Fire Boy, whom Chanfrau personated in "A 
 Glance at New York." Reading it through, one discovers 
 strange local allusions marking the time, but more than 
 that one detects the identical movement so familiar in the 
 humor of modern melodrama. I imagine Mose might slip 
 into the cast of "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model" with 
 perfect impunity. It is the tough type later dealt with in 
 Townsend's "Chimmie Fadden" and in Owen Kildare's 
 "My Mamie Rose," but with none of the naturahsm of 
 present day technique. It was familiar rough-and-tumble 
 drama, with glaring pathos, coarse humor, and burlesque 
 interruptions. 
 
 But already we note this fact concerning the regard of the 
 American dramatist, in his effort to create the American 
 
 * See chapter on Raymond by Franklyn Fyles, contained in the 
 second volume of McKay and Wingate's "Famous American 
 Actors of To-day." 
 
 » Atlantic, 35: 749, June, 1875. 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 53 
 
 type he was obliged to create American condition. And we 
 soon find the trail of society drama sketching the manners 
 and customs of distinct decades. That is why, in reading 
 the^early Aihencan dramas, it were well to connect Mrs. 
 Mowatt's " Fashion " (1845) and Mrs. Sidney F. Bateman's 
 "Self" (1856) with the reading of Fanny Kemble's New 
 York experiences and with the travels of Tyrone Power. 
 John Brougham came to New York around 1842, and he 
 used to shoot birds in the woods near Twenty-third Street, 
 and to take suburban drives around the old reservoir on 
 Forty-second Street, where the New York Public Library 
 now stands. 
 
 The current papers seemed surprised over the facility of 
 ordinary dialogue used in these plays — dialogue containing 
 local allusion of the street and parlor of that time, intro- 
 ducing the conventional English dialect, exploiting the 
 parvenu desire to utter French phrases, making use of negro 
 dialect as incongruous as that resorted to by Poe in "The 
 Gold Bug." One may trace the period by the references to 
 civic improvements, as when Mrs. Bateman makes one of 
 her characters speak of horses slipping on the Russ pave- 
 ments. There is a slight touch of Harriet Martineau's 
 political economy in attitudes strictly feminine. 
 
 At the time of Mrs. Mowatt's "Fashion," New York 
 whirled around Canal Street. All society drama seemed to 
 know but one situation : the mad rush after money and social 
 prestige at the moment when financial ruin threatened a 
 family. It sought to be satire aimed particularly at the effort 
 to be English, for the American is introduced breezily and 
 roughly, — note Adam Trueman, the farmer, in "Fashion." 
 Lower Broadway was the promenade, with its busses and 
 carriages rolling out into the country — possibly to Central 
 Park — carrying parties for recreation. The theatres were 
 clustered around the lower end of New York when "Fashion" 
 
54 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 was presented at the Park Theatre (March 24, 1845), 
 opposite the old Astor House on Vesey Street. Even then 
 theatrical life had flowed from the Battery to Park Row; it 
 was soon to creep up Broadway, the Wallacks going from 
 Brougham's Lyceum near Broome Street on Broadway to 
 Thirteenth Street, thence to Thirtieth. New York theatres 
 have moved with the parks. At one time. Twenty-third 
 Street was considered a central location for drama, but now 
 Forty-second Street seems to be the established point of 
 activity. Theatrical conditions have enlarged since the 
 days of " Fashion, " and so has social life. 
 
 Poe^ was not quite in accord with the "modern drama" 
 of his day, yet, despite his prejudiced feeling, his comments 
 anent "Fashion" have truth in them. If I quote him at 
 length, it is to illustrate how aloof he was, nevertheless, from 
 the true spirit of the theatre, even though his literary sense 
 measured aptly the " monstrous inartisticalities." He wrote: 
 
 "The day has at length arrived when men demand ra- 
 tionalities in place of conventionalities. It will no longer do 
 to copy, even with absolute accuracy, the whole tone of even 
 so ingenious and really spirited a thing as the * School for 
 Scandal.' ^ It was comparatively good in its day, but it 
 would be positively bad at the present day, and imitations 
 of it are inadmissible at any day. 
 
 " Bearing in mind the spirit of these observations, we may 
 say that ' Fashion' is theatrical but not dramatic. It is a 
 pretty well-arranged selection from the usual routine of 
 stage characters, and stage manoeuvres — but there is not 
 one particle of any nature, beyond greenroom nature, about 
 
 ^ The over-conscientiousness of Foe's criticism is seen in his con- 
 fession {Broadivay Journal, April 5, 1845) that since its opening he 
 had been to Mrs. Mowatt's "Fashion" every night, in order to 
 determine the full extent of its merits and demerits. 
 
 2 See "Later Criticism" (V) in Virginia edition of his works. 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 55 
 
 it. No such events ever happened in fact, or ever could 
 happen, as happen in 'Fashion/ Nor are we quarrehng, 
 now, with the mere exaggeration of character or incident; 
 were this all, the play, although bad as comedy, might be 
 good as farce, of which the exaggeration of possible incon- 
 gruities is the chief element. Our faultfinding is on the 
 score of deficiency in verisimilitude — in natural art — that 
 is to say, in art based on the natural laws of man's heart and 
 understanding." 
 
 It is this violent distortion which marks Boucicault's 
 "The Streets of New York" (1857), Daly's "Under the 
 Gaslight" (1867), and Howard's "Saratoga" (1870), equally 
 as lacking in verisimilitude as "Fashion" or as " Self." In 
 contrast with these, Langdon Mitchell's "The New York 
 Idea" (1906) is a striking and excellent example of the 
 progress made in American social drama. The early stage 
 cared nothing for invention or plot, and its wit lay in carica- 
 ture. Mr. Mitchell's comedy^ is good reading; it has literary 
 tone, and, above all, it lacks grotesque wit, substituting 
 instead brilliant humor. 
 
 The progress of the American theatre is marked by the 
 manager as well as by the actor. John Brougham,^ of 
 Irish extraction, did much for the stage practically as well as 
 literarily. His mind was prolific in the interests of W. E. 
 Burton, who was himself a devotee of the pen. Comedies, 
 farces, melodramas, comediettas, dramatizations, especially 
 of Dickens, spectaculars and burlesques are to the credit of 
 Brougham,^ yet not one of his plays has had vitality 
 enough to hold the boards. Yet in the '50's, no man 
 was more prominent than he — writer, manager, and 
 actor. 
 
 * Printed privately. 
 
 2 See Life by William Winter; see also the latter's "Other Days." 
 
 3 See Wegelin. 
 
56 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Succeeding him came the Wallack galaxy, J. W. Wallack 
 revising Congreve's " Love for Love, " and Lester Wallack 
 (1820-1888) writing "Two to One; or. The King's Visit" 
 (1854), "First Impressions" (1856), "The Veteran" (1859), 
 "The Romance of a Poor Young Man" (1859), "Central 
 Park" (1861), and "Rosedale" (1863). Close upon the 
 brilliancy of Wallack's stock companies came Palmer's 
 Union Square Theatre Company,^ which carried its prestige 
 to the Madison Square Theatre and thence to the Lyceum, 
 when Daniel Frohman came into the horizon. In the mean- 
 time, Augustin Daly (1838-1899), in 1862, adapted "Leah, 
 the Forsaken" from Mosenthal, and therewith began his 
 career, which was to include his pruning and arranging of 
 the Elizabethan drama, and his adaptations of French pieces 
 like "Frou-Frou." Such a survey as is here given cannot 
 ignore the managerial regime of Laura Keene, or the drama- 
 tization of "Camille" by Matilda Heron (1856). 
 
 But Wallack with his English proclivities, and Palmer with 
 his numerous D'Ennery and Sardou adaptations by A. R. 
 Cazauran, which were deprived of social significance, and 
 Daly with his German dependence, might hardly be deemed 
 influences on the American dramatist, until 1870 brought 
 Bronson Howard to the field. Yet these managers had 
 much to say concerning the American drama. In 1893, 
 Palmer 2 wrote, apropos of Bartley Campbell and his contem- 
 poraries: 
 
 "The prominent evil tendency of the American writer has 
 been to look for his types among his countrymen of the baser 
 sort, who never by any possibility pronounce English words 
 properly and who seem to take the greatest pains to speak 
 
 * See The American Magazine, 9:1-23, Nov., 1888, an article 
 on Palmer by George Edgar Montgomery. The Boston Museum 
 was dominated by the personality of manager Field. 
 
 ^ Forum, 15:614-20. 
 
Photo, by AtmS Dupont 
 
 AuGusTix Dai.y 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA FROM 1750 TO 1870 57 
 
 slang and utter vulgarisms, and to act as if good manners 
 were a reproach instead of an accomplishment." 
 
 Augustin Daly became general, after specifying that the 
 American dramatist of his day sought to emulate the master- 
 pieces of modern fiction. He wrote (1886) : 
 
 "Boker might have idealized the Kentucky tragedy in- 
 stead of the Rimini drama, and Bird might have made his 
 Syartacus an Indian Chief — but our national theatre has 
 lost nothing by their omission. The present masterpieces 
 of the stage, in every tongue, are pictures of the passions of 
 mankind in general." 
 
 Finally, I quote the opinions of Boucicault,^ whose dramas 
 are prolific and whose plots are ingenious — Boucicault, 
 the sentimentalist, whose Irish humor was not native, but 
 who directed himself into native channels because he was 
 enough of the playwright to give the public what was 
 opportune, hke "The Relief of Lucknow" (1858). He 
 deplored "the philosophical school of sociology," and dep- 
 recated the naturalism of Zola and the realism of Ibsen. 
 Given always to broad expressions of opinion, he wrote (1890) : 
 
 " Tragedy and high comedy will always be held in respect 
 on the future American stage, but it seems probable that the 
 drama of modern life, the reflex of the period, will prevail 
 over every other kind of entertainment. This drama will 
 present a character, or a group of characters, not a compli- 
 cated or sensational action, affording a physiological study 
 by way of illustration, not by way of description." 
 
 Thus spoke those most prominent in the theatrical field 
 before the advent of Charles and Daniel Frohman, before 
 the actual period when the American dramatist found it an 
 advantage to be American. There are other tendencies in 
 the development, to be noted in the next chapter, but this 
 summary will be suflicient to indicate that, though the body 
 
 * Arena, 2: 641-52, Nov., 1890. 
 
58 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 of American drama is large, its form is out of fashion and is of 
 interest simply as history or as a measm-e of histrionic ability. 
 
 We do not repudiate the development of American drama 
 before 1870, but we do not rank it as high. We revere the 
 names of Booth and Barrett, of Jefferson and Holland, of 
 Davenport, Gilbert, and Clarke, of Laura Keene and Char- 
 lotte Cushman. But the drama in those days developed 
 under peculiar social and economic conditions which are 
 over; the type, the form, and the manner are over. 
 
 We are sure to find the average and the below-the-average 
 in each and every age. There was as much mediocre stage 
 material before 1870 as after, in fact more. I only question 
 a production in the light of what I know of my time; I test 
 its artistic quality by whatever culture I may have; I 
 challenge its morality by what I have learned of the moral 
 atmosphere in which I live. No critic should undervalue or 
 overvalue. But the service of an historical perspective in 
 such a survey as this lies in the conclusions which result. 
 For one who has read dramatic history aright can see that 
 the modern theatre calls for different acting because of the 
 change in stage technique. The business of the theatre to- 
 day cannot be managed as Booth mismanaged his theatre in 
 New York. If the drama often lies in the hands of money- 
 changers, such condition is a business condition which has to 
 alter before art may flourish. The drama must pass through 
 its evolution, through its periods of types and conditions. 
 If people are interested in social reform, it must reflect 
 society. Tlmt seems to be where it is to-day. 
 
 Before 1870, the American dramatist, as we take him in 
 the studies to follow, did not exist. But effort toward 
 Americanism did find root, even as early as Royall Tyler, 
 and in tracing this persistent effort is to be found the chief 
 value of any literal historical survey. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 OUR LITERARY AND OUR CLOSET-DRAMA 
 
 Dramatic history clearly demonstrates to the student that 
 while it is not necessary for a play to be literature, any play 
 that is true to the essentials of that segment of life with 
 which it deals cannot help but be literature. Yet neither 
 proposition implies that in order to be literature, drama 
 needs must sacrifice its fundamental moving and progres- 
 sive character. 
 
 Tradition creates stolid impressions, and after 1830, 
 when Hugo and Dumas set the dramatic pace, tragedy on 
 every hand was couched in nothing but a grandiloquent 
 manner. Every one copied the Elizabethans, and it was 
 considered false to theatrical standards to select any sub- 
 ject for stage treatment that would not be aloof and most 
 likely historical. Our American authors were interested 
 in foreign literature; Longfellow, Lowell, and later, Bayard 
 Taylor, showed enthusiasm for continental ideas, mediaeval 
 or modern. 
 
 In one respect, the literary drama in America flourished 
 as it did in England — through the support and interest 
 of the actor. But while the American literary type was 
 nought in comparison with the British type, Edwin Forrest 
 in magnitude was no inferior to Macready and Irving, 
 who stood sponsors for Browning and Tennyson. Except 
 for the historical perspective, this phase of American drama 
 
60 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 might be dismissed in a general way, but Forrest, through 
 power and animal magnetism, carried many a verbose text 
 across the footlights. His whole method as an actor en- 
 couraged such pieces as Stone's "Metamora," Bird's "The 
 Gladiator," and Conrad's "Jack Cade." 
 
 Yet, while there is a certain rolling sonorousness in these, 
 they are not native in the sense that the subject matter 
 was native to the soil. They were imitative, as John Howard 
 Payne was imitative in "Brutus; or, the Fall of Tarquin" 
 (1818). The old English drama was the model, while Italy, 
 Spain, or Germany appeared to be the locality. In choice 
 of subject alone, these literary aspirants for the drama 
 exhibited their preconceived notions as to tragedy. The 
 Southerners who wrote dramas knew nothing outside of 
 foreign realms. A. J. Requier became author of "The 
 Spanish Exile" (1842); George Henry Miles wrote "Mo- 
 hammed" (1850), "De Soto" (1853), and "Seiior Valiente" 
 (1858); Caroline Lee Hentz published a five-act tragedy, 
 "De Lara; or. The Moorish Bride" (1843); while Isaac 
 Harby, in the stream of classic tradition and of Kotzebue 
 influence, wrote "Alexander Severus" (1807) and " Alberti" 
 (1819).! 
 
 What Professor Matthews says of England may very 
 well be said of America: that its "literature is strewed with 
 wrecked tragedies, lofty enough in aspiration, but pitifully 
 lacking in imagination." If these pieces found their way 
 to the stage, they did so because they were nurtured by the 
 mistaken beliefs of some manager. When J. W. Wallack 
 was in charge of The National, he had faith in the dra- 
 matic powers of Nathaniel P. Willis, but, save in " Tortesa, 
 the Usurer" (1839), Willis cannot be said to have approached 
 the requirements of the stage. Even in "Tortesa" he was 
 
 1 See Bibliography: "Southern Fiction Prior to 1860." Jamea 
 Gibson Johnson. Charlottesville, Va., 1909. 
 
OUR LITERARY AND CLOSET-DRAMA 61 
 
 undramatic though oratorical; he had read Hugo, and he 
 knew his Shy lock and his Juliet. In fact, these early authors 
 who wrote literary or closet-dramas were so steeped in 
 Shakespeare that echoes of the great poet's lines are easily 
 detected everywhere. Boker's '* Francesca da Rimini,'' his 
 most suitably theatrical play, is simply riddled with Eliza- 
 bethan harmonies — lines barely changed save to make 
 the verse weaker, and containing the identical sentiment 
 put in a less inevitable way. 
 
 The Knickerbocker, the New England, the Philadelphia, 
 and the Southern schools, therefore, held the same notions 
 regarding the drama as a readable and as an actable medium. 
 The literary man's attitude toward the theatre was that of 
 the dilettante; it was amateurish, though there was a sincere 
 desire on his part to excel in the art. But the litterateur had 
 a mistaken notion as to the province of the theatre, and 
 he was not willing to serve apprenticeship. Besides which, 
 in his choice of subject, he was prompted by the old-fashioned 
 broadness of acting, and he wrote romantic melodrama — 
 romantic in a sort of external psychology, but statuesque 
 in action. That notion of the heroic has persisted, as we 
 shall see when we come to consider the Tragic Spirit and the 
 American people. 
 
 It is false, however, to separate literature and drama. 
 While it is legitimate to accept the closet-drama as a form 
 in itself, it is not legitimate to consider it as in any way 
 necessary to the theatre. It is a hybrid type which Professor 
 Matthews rightly notes appeared and appears only at times 
 when literature and the theatre are divorced.^ Every poet 
 who has written a play has intended it for the stage, but 
 he has approached his task wrongly. And so we begin to 
 realize the hopelessness of clriming the closet-drama as part 
 
 1 See " The Legitimacy of the Closet-Drama." Brander Matthews. 
 Scribner'Sy February, 1908. 
 
62 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 of the strength of the theatre, when we read H. A. Beers' 
 opinion of it : 
 
 "[The closet-dramatist] need not sacrifice truth of char- 
 acter and probabiHty of plot to the need of highly accentu- 
 ated situations. He does not have to consider whether a 
 speech is too long, too ornate in diction, too deeply thought- 
 ful for recitation by an actor. If the action lags at certain 
 points, let it lag. In short, as the aim of the closet-dramatist 
 is other than the playwright's, so his methods may be 
 independent." 
 
 This statement gives a false impression of the relation 
 between literature and drama; one is a principle of thought 
 and expression; the other is a form of thought and expres- 
 sion. To deny that drama cannot come within the category 
 of literature is to deny that drama may ever have a claim 
 to permanence. True literature is unconscious excellence. 
 Shakespeare wrote plays rather than poetry, yet the poetry 
 in them preserves them, and they live because, though the 
 action is generally conventional, the spiritual quality and 
 the mental value are there without hurting the movement 
 of the whole. Modern drama, alone, refutes the claim that 
 closet-plays are closet-plays simply because they aim to be 
 literature. Effective stage pieces, as a rule, have not been 
 pleasing to read, but that is the fault of the literary sense 
 of the author who has aimed for appreciation through out- 
 ward theatrical effect. 
 
 There are two sentences in Professor Matthews' "The 
 Literary Merit of Our Latter-day Drama" ^ which point 
 to cardinal weaknesses in the closet-drama. He claims that 
 "a dramatist who fails to please the play -going public of 
 his own time will never have another chance," and again 
 he writes that "style is the great antiseptic, no doubt, but 
 style cannot bestow life on the still-born." In both of these 
 
 1 See "Inquiries and Opinions." 
 
OUR LITERARY AND CLOSET-DRMIA 63 
 
 respects, closet-dramas have failed, and, therefore, as a stage 
 consideration, they exert no influence. Managers lose when- 
 ever they mount such plays, for usually literature of this 
 kind cares nothing for the practical limitation of technique 
 or of stage accessory. If it is not a drama of ideas, it is a 
 drama of imagery; it is discursive rather than concentrated; 
 it is slow-moving rather than active; it is poetic rather than 
 dramatic. 
 
 Longfellow, after seeing "The Vicar of Wakefield" in 
 dramatization, was convinced of the superiority of dramatic 
 representation over narrative. But, on the other hand, he 
 was never keenly alive to the actions and reactions of life, 
 which manifest themselves in active situations rather than 
 in pictures. We find him, therefore, writing as early as 
 1845: "Felt more than ever to-day the difference between 
 my ideal home-world of Poetry, and the outer, actual, tan- 
 gible Prose-world. V»Tien I go out of the precincts of my 
 study, down the village street to college, hov/ the scaffolding 
 about the Palace of Song comes rattling and clattering down." 
 "The Spanish Student" (1843) and the "Tragedies" failed 
 to find their way to the stage. 
 
 In other words, the closet-dramatist has suffered because 
 he has been too contemplative on one hand, and because, 
 on the other, he has placed too much attention upon orna- 
 mentation. W. D. Ho wells and Henry James reduced the 
 oratorical to terms of modern prose rhythm, and in their 
 dialogues they came very near the requirements of the 
 stage. Mr. Ho wells' farces have all been published, ^ and 
 their literary flavor once more suggests to us a weakness 
 in the argument that literature and drama are incompatible. 
 The fault with Mr. Howells lies in the fact that his outlook 
 upon life is narrative, and that he is too faithful in noting 
 
 ^ See partial list in Roden's "Later American Plays." See also 
 catalogues of Harper & Bros. 
 
64 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 small conversation. But Mr. Howells has not been an in- 
 fluence in American drama, however much his interest has 
 been centered on the stage. In 1877, Lawrence Barrett 
 appeared in his "Counterfeit Presentment," and in 1878 
 appeared in his " Yorick's Love." 
 
 But, like Henry James and Hamlin Garland, Mr. Howells 
 has a theoretical view of drama. All of them are interested 
 in the stage from the narrative and inventive standpoints; 
 they are pleased with the inventions, the ideas, the character- 
 izations, the moral problems, the philosophy, the social 
 attitudes, but the dramatic manner does not concern them. 
 They disdain the theatrical, not realizing that consistent 
 theatricalism may enter the realms of literature. Charles 
 Klein, for instance, has misused theatricalism, though his 
 plays have been popular, and in many of their situations 
 effective. In no way are his plays closet-dramas; they 
 are thoroughly actable. But he oftentimes perverts what 
 the literary dramatist fails to use at all. 
 
 I shall later speak of the dramatic sense possessed both 
 by Mr. Howells and Mr. James; even in their narrative, 
 they realize the essence of comedy — that essence which 
 would be of greatest benefit to the American stage were it 
 possessed by the American dramatist. In comparison with 
 the early literary coteries, however, Howells and James are 
 nearer the real spirit of the modern drama. 
 
 The popular play is being published to-day for a reading 
 public eager to have it; and gradually the literary following 
 is coming to realize that simply because of the fact that a 
 drama is actable is no reason that is it not also readable. 
 Those who try to pore through Sheridan Knowles' "Brutus" 
 or Conrad's "Jack Cade" will realize how much of the suc- 
 cess was due to acting; in fact how much of the dialogue 
 was written for the actor. Henry Arthur Jones is a great 
 believer in the literary value of modern drama, upholding 
 
OUR LITERARY AND CLOSET-DRAMA 65 
 
 the idea that if a play is truly alive, it must be literature.^ 
 And his belief jBnds full expression in the following: 
 
 "If you have faithfully and searchingly studied your 
 fellow-citizens; if you have selected from amongst them 
 those characters that are interesting in themselves, and that 
 also possess an enduring human interest; if, in studying 
 these interesting personalities, you have severely selected, 
 from the mass of their sayings and doings and impulses, 
 those words and deeds and tendencies which mark them 
 at once as individuals and as types; if you have then recast 
 and re-imagined all the materials; if you have cunningly 
 shaped them into a story of progressive and accumulative 
 action; if you have done all this, though you may not have 
 used a single word but what is spoken in ordinary American 
 intercourse to-day, I will venture to say that you have 
 written a piece of live American literature." 
 
 II 
 
 All of our literary men have been interested in the theatre. 
 One of the Dunlap publications ^ gives opening addresses in 
 verse written by Washington Irving, Fitz-Greene Halleck, 
 Bret Harte, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and others on occasions 
 when theatres were opened. Percy Mackaye is a recent 
 type of the occasional poet, having read lines when the 
 corner-stone for the New Theatre was laid. But our literary 
 men, whether of America or of England, have always had a 
 hidden contempt for the theatre. This was largely because 
 they identified drama with the theatrical life which supports 
 it. Washington Irving's interest in the theatre brought 
 
 * See a lecture by Jones delivered at Yale University, entitled 
 "Literature and the Modern Drama;" published in the Atlantic, 
 December, 1906, pp. 796-807. 
 
 2 No. 3, 1867. 
 
66 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 him in close touch with John Howard Payne, who was abetted 
 in his career by Edmund Kean. Payne had not only been 
 an actor himself, becoming a friend of Talma, but he was 
 brought up in the school of Home's "Douglas.'* 
 
 John Augustus Stone (1801-1834),^ likewise, was an actor, 
 and approached play writing from the inside. His "Meta- 
 mora" took the prize offered by Forrest for the best American 
 play. Where this actor was beneficial to the native play- 
 WTight was in the fact that he paid well for what he wanted, 
 while the American manager of that day could bring plays 
 from England, or translate continental successes, with little 
 or no expense. 
 
 Forrest stood sponsor for Richard Penn Smith, author 
 of "Caius Marius," and likewise presented Robert Mont- 
 gomery Bird's (1803-1854) "The Gladiator" (1831) in a 
 bold and impressive manner. The Philadelphia physician, 
 who was likewise a novelist, wrote in addition " The Broker 
 of Bogota." 2 But perhaps Forrest's most powerful repre- 
 sentation, because of its democratic spirit, was his role in 
 Robert T. Conrad's (1810-1858) » "Jack Cade; or. The 
 Bondman of Kent" (1868), a play of patriotic scope. His 
 acting in this piece was fierce with " the most intense feeling 
 of the wrongs and charms of the oppressed common people." 
 One contemporary account speaks of his being "a sort of 
 dramatic Demosthenes, rousing the cowardly and slum- 
 
 ^ Stone produced a tragedy "Fauntleroy," Charleston, S. C; 
 he also wrote ''The Demoniac;" "Tancred;" "The Restoration; or, 
 The Diamond Cross;" "The Ancient Briton" (1833); and "The 
 Golden Fleece." He killed himself. 
 
 2 His other dramas were "Oraloosa" (1832); "The Cowled Lover;" 
 "Caridorf." See Wemyss: "Twenty-six Years of the Life of 
 an Actor." 
 
 3 Conrad was a Philadelphia lawyer. James E. Murdoch 
 presented his "Conrad of Naples" (1832). "Jack Cade" was first 
 given by Addams as "Aylmere." Conrad accepted many poUtical 
 offices. 
 
OUR LITERARY AND CLOSET-DRAMA 67 
 
 berous hosts of mankind to redeem themselves with their 
 own right hands." 
 
 The only connection Forrest had with WilHs was to horse- 
 whip him in Washington Square, New York, for some 
 scandal in the divorce suit then pending between the actor 
 and his wife. Whatever claims Willis had dramatically 
 were furthered by Wallack. But there is no doubt that 
 among the closet-dramatists, Willis piay be taken as a not- 
 able example, criticised in a contemporary fashion by Poe. 
 Most literary men of the period essayed drama: Charles 
 Brockden Brown (1771-1810)1 with "Alcuin'^ (1797); 
 John Neal (1793-1876) with "Otho" (1819); George P. 
 Morris (1802-1864) with "The Maid of Saxony '^ (1842); 
 Thomas H. Chivers (1807-1858) with "The Sons of Usna" 
 (1858); W. W. Story (1819-1895) with "Nero" (1875) and 
 with "Stephania" (1875).2 
 
 George Henry Boker (1823-1890) was the most important 
 of the Philadelphia group, a man of leisure, a scholar, and 
 one whose culture was more exact and polished than his 
 passion was sincere. Hans Breitman (C. G. Leland) speaks 
 of Boker's boyhood, when he manifested such remarkable 
 poetic talents that Forrest, in a broad flood of enthusiasm, 
 characterized him as the best reader in America. At Prince- 
 ton, Boker gratified every artistic taste, and gathered in 
 his room those students whose interests were distinctly 
 literary. 
 
 He then studied law, and traveled abroad until 1847. 
 As early as this, Bayard Taylor recognized in him a close 
 and sympathetic friend. In the following years, Boker 
 wrote assiduously, and his devotion to the Union cause 
 during the Civil War is seen in the numberless "Poems of 
 the War" which came from his pen. In 1871, Boker began 
 
 1 A two-volume Life of Brown was written by William Dunlap. 
 
 2 See Wegelin and Roden. 
 
68 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 his diplomatic service, being sent by President Grant to 
 Constantinople. He was transferred in 1875 to St. Peters- 
 burg, where he gained much popularity during a two years* 
 service. 
 
 All this time, his poetic talents were variously directed 
 toward the stage. He was the author of "Calaynos," a 
 tragedy given at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, the year 
 after its publication in 1848. " Francesca da Rimini " (1853) ^ 
 is his most famous piece, and is most deserving of considera- 
 tion in a theatrical sense. Boker's art temperament is well 
 measured in the following from the pen of Richard Henry 
 Stoddard : 
 
 "There was no such word as fail in his bright lexicon, 
 wherein failure was hammered into success. I was not sur- 
 prised to learn therefore [March, 1853] . . . that he had a 
 new tragedy on the anvil. * You will laugh at this,' he wrote, 
 'but the thing is so; "Francesca^ da Rimini" is the title. 
 Of course you know the story — every one does; but you, 
 nor any one else, do not know it as I have treated it. I have 
 great faith in the successful issue of this new attempt. I 
 think all day, and write all night. This is one of my pecu- 
 liarities, by the bye: a subject seizes me, soul and body, 
 which accounts for the rapidity of my execution. My muse 
 resembles a whirlwind : she catches me up, hurries me along, 
 and drops me all breathless at the end of her career.' The 
 great heat at which 'Lear' and 'Julius Csesar' were prob- 
 ably written, at which we know 'The Prisoner of Chillon' 
 was written, at which 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon' is said to 
 have been written, were inherent in the dramatic genius of 
 
 * He also wrote "AnneBoleyn," "Leonorde Guzman," "The Be- 
 trothal/' and "The Widow's Marriage." He was one of the founders 
 of the Union League Club, in Philadelphia. For biographical data, 
 etc., see Critic, Jan. 11, 1890; Critic, April 12, 1890; Critic, April 
 14, 1888 (G. P. Lathrop); Lippincott, June, 1890 (R. H. Stoddard); 
 Atlantic, March, 1890 (Contributor's Club). 
 
OUR LITERARY AND CLOSET-DRAMA 69 
 
 Boker, from whom, at the end of nineteen days, I received 
 another letter, which I found very interesting: 'Now that 
 "Francesca da Rimini" is done, all but the polishing, I 
 have time to look around and see how I have been neglect- 
 ing my friends during my state of possession. Of course 
 you wish to know my opinion of the bantling: I shall sup- 
 pose you do, at all events. Well, then, I am better satisfied 
 with "Francesca da Rimini" than with any of my previous 
 plays. It is impossible for me to say what you, or the world, 
 will say of it; but if it do not please you both, I do not know 
 what I am about. The play is more dramatic than former 
 ones, fiercer in its displays of intense passions, and, so far 
 as mere poetry goes, not inferior, if not superior, to any 
 of them. In this play I have dared more, risked more, 
 than I ever had courage to do before. Ergo, if it be not a 
 great triumph, it will certainly be a great failure. I doubt 
 whether you in a hundred guesses could hit upon the man- 
 ner in which I have treated the story. I shall not attempt to 
 prejudice you regarding the play; I would rather have you 
 judge for yourself, even if your decision be adverse. Am 
 I not the devil and all for rapid composition? My speed 
 frightens me, and makes me fearful of the merits of my 
 work. Yet on coolly going over my work, I find little to 
 object to, either as to the main design or its details ; I touch 
 up, here and there, but I do little more. The reason for 
 my rapid writing is that I never attempt putting pen to 
 paper before my design is perfectly matured. I never start 
 with one idea, trusting to the glow of poetical composition 
 for the remainder. That will do in lyrical poetry, but it would 
 be death and damnation to dramatic. But just think of 
 it! — Twenty-eight hundred lines in about three weeks! 
 To look back upon such labor is appalling! Let me give 
 you the whole history of my manner of composition in a 
 few words. If it be not interesting to you, you differ from 
 
70 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 me, and I mistake the kind of matters that interest you. 
 While I am writing, I eat little, I drink nothing, I meditate 
 my work, literally, all day. By the time night arrives, I 
 am in a highly nervous and excited state. About nine 
 o'clock, I begin writing and smoking, and I continue the 
 two exercises, pari passu, until about four o'clock in the 
 morning. Then I reel to bed, half-crazy with cigar-smoke 
 and poesy, sleep five hours, and begin the next day as the 
 former. Ordinarily, I sleep from seven to eight hours, but 
 when I am writing, but five, — simply because I cannot 
 sleep any longer at such times. The consequence of this 
 mode of life is, that at the end of a long work I sink at once 
 like a spent horse, and have not energy enough to perform 
 the ordinary duties of life. I feci my health giving way 
 under it, but really I do not care. I am ambitious to be 
 numbered among the martyrs.'" 
 
 Loyal as Stoddard was to his friend, we find him writing 
 in this critical vein: 
 
 "The conception of his tragedies and comedies, their 
 development, their movement, and their catastrophes, 
 are dramatic. Poetical, they are not overweighted with 
 poetry; emotional and passionate, their language is natu- 
 rally figurative, and the blank verse rises and falls as the 
 occasion demands. One feels in reading them that the 
 writer had studied the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, 
 and that they harmed as well as helped him. If he could 
 have forgotten them and remembered only his own genius, 
 his work would have been more original. A born dramatist, 
 he was a genuine balladist, as I could prove by comparing 
 his ballads with those of Macaulay; and a born sonneteer, 
 as I could prove by comparing his sonnets with those of 
 Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, and Shakespeare." ^ 
 
 1 "Francesca da Rimini" was first produced at the old Broadway 
 Theatre in 1855, with E. L. Davenport and Mrae. Ponigi; revived 
 
OUR LITERARY AND CLOSET-DRAMA 71 
 
 Boker's "Francesca da Rimini" is a peculiarly contra- 
 dictory piece of work, since, from the standpoint of the 
 stage, it is essentially and effectively dramatic, while as 
 literature, it is mediocre and badly imitative of the Eliza- 
 bethan style. So imbued was Boker with the method of his 
 models, that he often paralleled Shakespeare, his poetic 
 imagery being imitative, and his phraseology disappointingly 
 colloquial. Yet over and above the mere story, Boker has 
 succeeded in depicting distinct character, especially in his 
 dwarf, Pejpe. The historical setting is slight, yet sufficient 
 to localize the piece, and the dramatis personce are faithful 
 in outline, though oftentimes devoid of consuming passion. 
 
 Should you take the different versions of the Francesca 
 legend, based on Dante's episodical mention of it in "The 
 Divine Comedy," it would be found that Phillips, as a 
 dramatist, has the fault of being diffuse, while Boker is 
 prosaic and plain. Were it not for over-elaboration, D'An- 
 nunzio's play miglit have supplanted all others on the same 
 subject, because of its Italian spirit. Could we draw from 
 Phillips his simple lyricism, from D'Annunzio his intensity, 
 from Boker his proportion, and from Marion Crawford his 
 realization of the true situation, toned away from melo- 
 drama, then the ideal play might be constructed. But Boker 
 is thoroughly actable, and is not unworthy of revival. 
 
 The attitude tow^ard the closet-drama is purely one of 
 culture. A pseudo-interest in the grandiloquent style has 
 resulted in that separation of literature from the dramatic 
 form, and as soon as one realizes that literature is inherent 
 in the substance and in the structure, so soon will ornamen- 
 
 by Lawrence Barrett and Marie Wainwright, at McVickar's Theatre, 
 Chicago, Nov. 6, 1882, and by Otis Skinner, William Norris, and 
 Marcia Van Dresser, at the Grand Opera House, Chicago, August 
 22, 1901. After the success of the piece in 1882, Boker wrote to 
 Barrett: "Why did n't I receive this encouragement twenty years 
 
72 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 tation cease to be strung in useless festoons upon the neces- 
 sary dialogue. For in all plays there is essential talk even 
 as there are Sarcey's scenes a faire. It is a false idea of 
 culture that created a false idea of closet-drama. For though 
 the theatre is based on imitation, it cannot abide a mis- 
 use of its essential structure in order to be called literature. 
 More than any other critic, Professor Brander Matthews has 
 persisted, in his writings, that the drama must comply with 
 the practical demands of the playhouse in order to be drama. 
 Pointing to the body of dramaturgy which has come down 
 to us, he has been firm in his claim that " only literature is 
 permanent." And so, we arrive at the same conclusion which 
 shall come to us in a consideration of the poetic drama. 
 We will accept drama in any form, just so it be drama first 
 of all. 
 
 The very rapid historical sketch contained in Chapters III and 
 IV must needs take into consideration the extensive additions to 
 our knowledge of the history of early American drama since 1910. 
 Texts are now made available which, heretofore, were considered 
 rare. The present author has issued three volumes of "Repre- 
 sentative American Dramas" which, in the early periods, include 
 Thomas Godfrey's "The Prince of Parthia" (1765), Robert Rogers' 
 "Ponteach; or, The Savages of America" (1766), Mercy Warren's 
 "The Group" (1775), Hugh Henry Brackenridge's "The Battle of 
 Bunker's-Hill (1776), John Leacock's "The Fall of British Tyranny" 
 (1776), Samuel Low's "The Pohtician Outwitted" (1789), Royal! 
 Tyler's "The Contrast" (1790), Dunlap's "Andr6" (1799), J. N. 
 Barker's "Indian Princess" (1808), and M. M. Noah's "She Would 
 Be a Soldier" (1819). 
 
 In addition to this, many plays of the intermediate period are 
 included in the second volume, Payne's "Brutus," Boker's "Fran- 
 cesca da Rimini," Conrad's "Jack Cade," Willis's "Tortesa," being 
 representative of the type. 
 
 In editing the plays included in his three-volume edition of 
 "Representative American Dramas," the present author has 
 given a running commentary on particular periods of American 
 drama, in the introductions accompanying each play. This, in a 
 way, supplements and makes more thorough the study suggested in 
 the preceding chapters. Bibliographies of individual dramatists 
 are included. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 BRONSON HOWARD: DEAN OF THE AMERICAN 
 DRAMA 
 
 As Dean of the American Drama, Bronson Howard occupies 
 a most significant position. The theatre is a very sensitive 
 barometer, registering current ideas and local manners, and 
 if one should range Mrs. Mowatfs "Fashion" (1847), Mrs. 
 Bateman's "Self" (1856), and Mr. Howard's "Saratoga" 
 (1870) side by side, the timely differences would be very 
 strikingly felt. The point of view held by Mr. Howard 
 just before his death had a broad sweep toward the future 
 and a very vital sweep along the past. For, in respect to 
 the latter position, he was able to estimate the value of that 
 dramatic soil and of those dramatic traditions from which 
 he sprung; he was so situated that he could step aside from 
 the main current, and note wherein the later drama had 
 profited by its inheritance. 
 
 It is unfortunate that in the years to come, the estimate 
 of Mr. Howard, based upon his numerous popular successes, 
 will not be a very high one, even though "The Banker's 
 Daughter" and "Aristocracy" are marked with a certain 
 literary quality. This stricture is partly due to the fact that 
 he wrote at a time when our American stage was flooded 
 with French imitations or importations; when, as Mr. 
 Howard himself declared, adaptations for the English speak- 
 ing stage not only meant a change to English life and English 
 characters, but meant also that in the transference, these 
 
74 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 characters continued "to express foreign ideas and to act 
 like foreigners." 
 
 But Mr. Howard's right to the title of Dean of the Ameri- 
 can Drama can never be disputed, for, whatever is done in 
 the future to enrich our native dramaturgic literature, it 
 will have been through the efforts of Mr. Howard that the 
 first impetus toward that efflorescence was given. In the 
 early seventies he stood single-handed, with the Anglicism 
 and classicism of Daly, Palmer, and Wallack as his chiefest 
 opposition, and he forced the public gaze upon current thought 
 and manners. So as to accomplish this object, he was obliged 
 to have recourse to conventions more French than they were 
 American. V/hat is of most importance is that Mr. Howard 
 by his plays established the fact of the American drama's 
 existence — plays in a way far more native than those 
 romantic pieces by George Boker and the Philadelphia 
 group. It is an unfortunate possibility, hov/ever, that unless 
 our dramatic literature emphasizes the essential elements 
 from which our national drama has come, Mr. Howard in 
 the future will be little more than a name to theatre-goers, 
 outside of the profession. For his plays are hardly literary in 
 the sense that they possess reading style or grace. That is 
 to be deplored, inasmuch as Mr. Howard, intellectually, 
 was of a high type of mind, while as Dean he always sup- 
 ported that which aimed to be the best. 
 
 It were futile indeed to regard Mr. Howard as a producing 
 playwright from any other angle of vision than that of his 
 day. His technique, his observation, his locale^ are of a gener- 
 ation that is gone; and though the humanity of his charac- 
 ters still retain acting possibilities, the American drama of 
 to-day is subject to far different influences. We are now 
 passing through the fires of scientific query and realistic 
 handling of the sex question. Dion Boucicault, as recent 
 as 1890, only vaguely felt that there was something in Ibsen 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 75 
 
 which demanded what he called serious regard. Long before 
 this storm and stress period in stage history, Mr. Howard's 
 method was so far crystallized as to remain unaffected by 
 later technique. And toward the latter part of his life, it 
 was curious to behold in him a man intellectually so far in 
 advance of his method of writing. For, despite Ibsen and 
 Zola and Tolstoi; despite Ho wells and James and Meredith; 
 despite Pinero and Jones and Shaw, Mr. Howard's last 
 comedy, " Kate," is untouched by current influences, however 
 much it strove to be modern. In this play his ideas of 
 life deepened, his technical grasp became firmer, his insight 
 keener, but his discussions were all clad in form typical of 
 "The Banker's Daughter," "One of Our Gh-ls," and "The 
 Henrietta." 
 
 Before 1870, the American Drama was very broadly and 
 very crudely manipulated in two directions: American 
 history and the American type were chiefly to be reckoned 
 with. We find long lists of Indian plays, of Revolutionary 
 dramas, of spectaculars unfolding the marvels of coloni- 
 zation and the successes of 1812. These early pieces are 
 all forgotten, save one perhaps — the "Metamora" of 
 Judge Stone, so closely identified with the personality of 
 Edwin Forrest. The Indian plays, as a genre, before 1846, 
 were not, however, any more common than the American 
 types which dominated the boards in such mushroom thick- 
 ness that the elder Hackett followed one play of the kind 
 with another; and his rival actor. Hill, became popularly 
 known as "Yankee " Hill. 
 
 It is customary for the dramatic historian of to-day to 
 discount the influence of the character type on the American 
 stage — a type which disappeared usually with the pass- 
 ing of the actor who created it. But the value of W. J. 
 Florence's Bardwell Slote, of John T. Raymond's Mulberry 
 Sellers, of Murdoch's and Mayo's Davy Crockett, of Chan- 
 
76 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 frau's Mose, and of Jefferson's Asa Trenchard, lay in the fact 
 that they helped to create in the minds of theatre-goers a 
 behef in national distinctions; they helped to preserve 
 American characteristics on the stage, however cartoon the 
 pictures might have been. All drama must thus work itself 
 out from extravagance to refinement. 
 
 When Mr. Howard began to write for the theatre, the 
 influence of Scribe, and his manner of unfolding plot and 
 counterplot, had not yet been succeeded by a more natural 
 method of development. Dumas, fils, with " Camille," had 
 injected into the romantic play of intrigue and infidelity, a 
 species of emotional analysis which was somehow mistaken 
 for an ethical purpose. Furthermore, Robertson and Taylor, 
 borrowing freely from the elder Dumas and Hugo on one 
 hand, and from the comedy of incident and manner on the 
 other, simply Anglicized the French form of drama for the 
 English stage. Mr. Howard found such to be the conditions 
 when he began his struggles. 
 
 He found that English managers realized it was less ex- 
 pensive, and involved less risk, to employ Boucicault,^ for 
 example, to translate French plays, to adapt them, as they 
 phrased it, than to experiment with a new play that had 
 never been tried upon the public He found that in America 
 the situation was very much the same. Popular opinion 
 was led to value an importation, and to discount any serious 
 treatment of American character or of American life. He 
 found, finally, that there was only half-hearted interest in 
 the American drama on the part of two of the leading managers 
 of that era, however much they might write encouragingly 
 of the subject in current reviews or in their reminiscences. 
 Lester Wallack in no way encouraged native talent, even 
 though his excellence as a stage manager helped to give the 
 
 1 See my "Famous Actor-Families in America" for a chapter on 
 "The Boucicaults." 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 77 
 
 theatre an abundant amount of English comedy and tragedy; 
 even though he was author of a local play called "Central 
 Park." ^ The same may well be claimed of Augustin Daly, 
 who nevertheless aimed to be American in "Under the Gas- 
 light." But his was likewise a foreign ambition, for he 
 mounted adaptations of French and German farces whenever 
 he wished to depart from the Shakespearean or classical 
 comedy repertoire of his New York theatres; he catered dis- 
 tinctively to culture, and how well he succeeded is measured 
 by the atmosphere which for so long a while after his death 
 clung to his Broadway playhouse at Thirtieth Street. 
 
 Of the three prominent managers, A. M. Palmer may be 
 said to have done the most to have encouraged native dra- 
 matic ability. He and Mr. Daly were both involved in the 
 development of Bronson Howard. 
 
 Such is the setting to aid us in claiming for this writer the 
 full appropriateness of the title: Dean of the American 
 Drama. Mr. Howard was born at Detroit in 1842, during 
 a time when that city was considered the extreme West. 
 To undertake a journey there from the East was a notable 
 accomplishment, and in one of James Fenimore Cooper's 
 numerous autobiographical references, we find him boast- 
 ing of the feat. In the "Leatherstocking" series, moreover, 
 one of the characters was based on Mr. Howard's father — 
 a man of adventurous nature, of firm disposition and deter- 
 mination — a man, in fine, of the pioneer type. The intense 
 American strain in this family reaches back as far as 1759, 
 when one of the Howards came over from England with 
 Wolfe's army, and, strange to say, almost immediately began 
 to realize that the colonies were right in their attitude toward 
 the mother-country. This sympathy increased to such an 
 extent that Howard enlisted with the "rebel" forces during 
 
 * See my "Famous Actor-Families in America" for a chapter on 
 "The Wallacks." 
 
78 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the Revolution — an act that resulted in his death on the 
 field at Monmouth, New Jersey. 
 
 Mr. Howard's grandfather was quick to catch the West- 
 ward spirit, though loath to break from the East. He was a 
 roving farmer who moved from Howard's Settlement on 
 Lake Ontario, thence to a point in New York State, near 
 the St. Lawrence River, and he instilled into his own son that 
 same instinct to migrate which had prompted the Revolu- 
 tionary sire to roam from place to place. 
 
 Mr. Howard's father was a commission merchant in De- 
 troit at the time of his son's birth. He had been a captain 
 of a schooner in the days when sea-faring encouraged muti- 
 nous crews — composed mostly of a cursing, grog-beset, brutal 
 type of sailor. But Howard, Sr., was of a different calibre 
 from most sea commanders. He banished the freedom of 
 oaths from the deck; he cleared the lockers and holds of all 
 grog; he insisted upon discipline which his friends told him 
 could never be maintained where grog was denied. His 
 actions as commander hastened the establishment of liquor 
 regulations in the maritime service, and abolished from 
 its prominent position on deck the water-cooler which had 
 up to this time been filled with grog for anyone who cared 
 to turn the faucet. His immediate reward was that he ob- 
 tained differential rates of insurance which other seamen 
 coveted, but were denied. Bronson Howard was proud of 
 this bit of family history. 
 
 Without giving up entire interest in the ship business, 
 Howard, Sr., joined the firm of Alvin Bronson and Company, 
 Bronson, after whom the young man was named, being at one 
 time State Senator at Albany from Oswego County. In 
 some of the early playbills we find the full name of the dram- 
 atist recorded as Bronson Crocker Howard, Mr. Crocker 
 being another partner of the firm. Many of his journalistic 
 friends used to address him as B. C. Howard, though ho 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 79 
 
 preferred the shorter form as more distinctive and individual- 
 istic. 
 
 From 1842 to 1858, therefore, young Howard remained 
 in Detroit, long enough to secure the rudiments of an edu- 
 cation, to see his father Mayor of the city (1849), and to 
 develop what his father bequeathed him — an inventive 
 taste which expanded later and aided him, when ingenuity 
 was required of him behind the scenes at the theatre. 
 
 Howard, Sr., was accustomed to whittle rough vessels 
 from blocks of wood; this we may consider as symbol of the 
 mechanical side of dramatic construction. In fact, before 
 the Prismatic Club of Detroit, Mr. Howard once claimed 
 that the mechanical engineer and the dramatist required 
 essentially the same technical training. He afterwards, 
 before the students of Harvard University, reasserted this, in 
 connection with his play, "The Banker's Daughter." 
 
 Young Howard was now sent East to prepare for Yale, — 
 the class of 1865; but though General Russell's preparatory 
 school did its work successfully, nature went against the 
 scheme, and Howard's eyes failed him in 1860. Later, he was 
 granted the privilege of attending a few lectures with his 
 class, but he was never able to matriculate. 
 
 During this time, the written drama as a profession was 
 farthest from his thoughts. He had manufactured a few 
 skits for his school, and had become unswerving in his deter- 
 mination not to enter a trade. In fact, stimulated by the 
 books and by the lecturing of Bayard Taylor, Howard was 
 bent on becoming a writer. With this phase we must now 
 deal, for it will indicate how subtly and how surely natural 
 inclination asserts itself. Unknowingly, we are led whither 
 our tastes prompt us, and Howard's first literary effort, based 
 upon a purely literary enthusiasm for the then recently 
 pul)!ished American translation of " Les Miserables," proved 
 to be a play. 
 
80 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 With all the confidence of youth, he persuaded a manager 
 to let him attempt a drama called "Fan tine," based on 
 some of the Hugo incidents. It was played by a local 
 stock company, managed according to the custom of the 
 day. The "star" was the only one to travel, going from 
 one city to another, in each of which a stock company was 
 ready to support him. When written, this crude first at- 
 tempt was found to be unfit for the practical side of the 
 theatre; with all the inexperience of the inexperienced 
 amateur, Howard had expanded the first act until it was 
 sufficiently long to be a play in itself. But, undaunted, he 
 set about pruning and cutting. What man can ever expect 
 to become a playwright without that energetic willingness to 
 slave, labor, and hope? Mr. Howard always possessed to a 
 large degree the unfailing optimism of the true craftsman, 
 and he once said, after he had gone through thirty-eight 
 years of theatre service : " I never can understand the doubts 
 as to whether one can do a play, if he really has it in him; he 
 just goes and does it without questioning." This determin- 
 ation which Mr. Howard always preached was an inspiration 
 to his younger associates, and to many of them he used to 
 say, "When you find yourself standing in the way of dra- 
 matic truth, clear the track!" 
 
 An interesting state of affairs existed in those days, ex- 
 cellently illustrated by the fate of "Fantine." This play 
 was never published; in fact, for a long while Mr. Howard 
 considered the manuscript as lost. The only trace of it to 
 be had was a "skeleton" copy which it was customary to 
 give to the prompter: that is, the play with all the leading 
 parts omitted, and only the cues as a guide. This "skeleton" 
 precaution was necessary because of the copyright weak- 
 ness which allowed all kinds of piracy to be committed in 
 the profession. There were slight means of protecting the 
 author's property in those days, a fact which added to Mr. 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 81 
 
 Howard's interest in the dramatic copyright debates. Under 
 such conditions, it would never do to allow the prompter 
 to have in his possession the entire manuscript. The " skele- 
 ton" was of small value to Mr. Howard; but fortunately, 
 the " leads " being extant, they turned up unexpectedly some 
 years after, and were dropped into the setting like missing 
 stones in a mosaic. 
 
 The eventful year of 1864, therefore, found Bronson 
 Howard making a start as playwright. Another interest 
 was drawing him to the stage, for he was serving a Detroit 
 paper as dramatic critic and besides, was reading plays for 
 his own amusement, familiarizing himself with the historical 
 development of playwriting, which is a necessary acquisition 
 for dignified theatre work. 
 
 These were war times, but young Howard does not seem 
 to have been drawn into the vortex, until it was rumored 
 that an invasion of the Union was to be attempted by the 
 English from Canada. For several nights, in consequence, 
 Howard tramped the shores of the Lake, waiting in the dark- 
 ness for momentary attack, and experiencing all the excite- 
 ment that comes before a battle. There was no invasion, 
 so he left Detroit in 1865, and landed in the Tribune office. 
 New York, where he was detailed as reporter to write up 
 the novel opening of the season at Coney Island. From 
 1867, intermittently until 1872, Howard attended isolated 
 lectures, but most of his energies were expended on journal- 
 ism, in a day when newspapers were being quickly founded, 
 and were as rapidly changing hands. 
 
 In the usual journalistic career, which, as we have said, 
 is so characteristic of many of our native playwrights, Mr. 
 Howard's history is exceptional. For he was trained in a 
 newspaper school that produced Whitelaw Reid, and from 
 1868 to 1872 he was filling varied positions on many editorial 
 staffs. He received his first honorarium as dramatic critic. 
 
82 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 under Charles H. Sweetzer, who founded The Round Table, 
 a precursor of The Nation, and was next sent to report the 
 Yale commencement and the Yale-Harvard boat race, for 
 the Evening Gazette. It was while on the latter paper that 
 one of his associate reporters was assigned a notable task — 
 to follow up and describe how the first bag of mail was brought 
 to New York from Philadelphia, an incident which was the 
 beginning of the post-ofiice system on its present gigantic 
 scale. 
 
 Howard then followed Sweetzer to his new paper, The 
 Mail, assuming the nominal ofiice of first president of the 
 Mail Association. But the paper was sold in 1870, and John 
 Russell Young then employed Howard on the Tribune, 
 making him exchange editor. Toward the latter part of 
 1871, he went over to the Post, continuing his journalistic 
 career, despite his intervening dramatic ventures, through 
 1876, during which year he wrote Centennial articles for the 
 London Pall Mall Magazine, and for the Detroit Free Press. 
 Before this, however, his determination had been firmly 
 settled to devote all of his energies to the drama. It was 
 probably about this time that his intimacy with Mr. (now 
 Sir) Charles Wyndham began. The latter's first managerial 
 venture occurred in "Hurricanes," which, written by Mr. 
 Howard, was renamed "Truth" in James Albery's adaptation 
 for England. In 1880, Miss^ Wyndham became Mrs. Bronson 
 Howard. 
 
 Despite the lethargic state in which Mr. Howard found 
 the American dramatist, and despite the absolute inertia of 
 the American drama itself, he entered the contest with great 
 energy. So thoroughly were foreign models dominant on the 
 boards that he later confessed how one of his earliest manu- 
 scripts contained speeches in which Newport people went 
 about exclaiming " Egad ! " in real eighteenth century style. 
 Mr. Howard was always fully aware of the historical changes 
 

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BRONSON HOWARD 83 
 
 in drama, the shifting of social attitudes, of moral conven- 
 tionalities. Every dramatist, unless he be distinctly a re- 
 former, is loath to overstep such conventionalities. Mrs. 
 Inchbald, in one of her dramatic prefaces, refers to play- 
 wrights of her day as being far behind the period in method 
 and in subject matter; yet at the same time she was astounded 
 to find Mrs. Centilever utilizing the clergy in one of her plays! 
 It took years for the stage minister to make his appearance 
 in society drama. 
 
 Mr. Howard once said that in Rachel Crothers' " The Three 
 of Us," such a heroine as is there portrayed — one who enters 
 a man's room at midnight, to outface his threats and to 
 outwit his claim that he will compromise her — was thirty 
 or forty years in coming. Augustus Thomas has announced 
 that he held "The Witching Hour" in his desk for several 
 seasons, waiting the psychological moment when public 
 sentiment would be alive to the truth of hypnotism. Ibsen 
 trained us all to an acceptance of heredity as a stage subject, 
 and he confessed in his correspondence that he was willing 
 and anxious to shock average conservatism, without waiting 
 for the opportune time to do things. He was always in ad- 
 vance of his public; hence his isolation and loneliness; hence 
 the storms of protest raised against him. This only indi- 
 cates the sensitiveness to dramatic change. 
 
 Mr. Howard accepted theatrical convention as it existed 
 in 1870; his one and only fight was for the recognition of the 
 American dramatist. Just before Robertson held sway in 
 the early sixties on the English stage, the old style drama was 
 in the ascendancy; nineteenth century people were viewing 
 and were accepting manners of another era. But Robert- 
 son gave a twist to such a state of affairs; the theatre pendu- 
 lum swung back to its normal balance, and though he did 
 not entirely free himself of the foreign yoke and of the 
 earlier romantic influence, Robertson at least focussed the 
 
84 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 glass upon contemporary condition. This accounts for 
 such a play as "Caste"; it explains many touches in the 
 dramas by Bronson Howard. 
 
 From "Saratoga" (1870) to "Kate" (1906), Mr. Howard 
 dealt with American character, largely in the midst of foreign 
 atmosphere. The advance from the same "Saratoga" to 
 his "Aristocracy" (1892), was only an advance in neatness 
 and closeness of dialogue. That feminine brightness which 
 drew down upon him the wrath of contemporary critics, 
 was admirably adapted, as it was in the case of Clyde Fitch, 
 to the French treatment. But the Anglo-French back- 
 ground detracts from the sincerity of American drama. Yet, 
 should one look closer, and not judge by externals entirely, 
 it will be seen, in the case of Mr. Howard, that in spite of the 
 prejudice against American dramatists and American themes, 
 in spite of the exoteric character of his technique, of his con- 
 struction, he anticipated many of our present-day dramatic 
 workers in the selection of his themes. 
 
 "The Young Mrs. Winthrop" (1882), however stereotyped 
 in its adherence to the " aside," is a domestic play of strong 
 import, by the side of which Alfred Sutro's "The Walls of 
 Jericho" is no more powerful arraignment of society forces 
 drawing husband and wife apart. "Moorcroft," though it 
 failed, exhibited Mr. Howard as aware of the value of time- 
 liness in theatre work. He had witnessed the instantaneous 
 effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and had noticed the melo- 
 dramatic success of Boucicault's "The Octoroon." It is 
 natural, therefore, that this "Moorcroft," based on a story 
 by John Hay, should have dealt with the slave trade in 
 similar melodramatic manner. 
 
 "Baron Rudolph" (1881) foreshadowed by many years 
 the stage treatment of the struggle between capital and labor, 
 so crudely handled by Charles Klein in "The Daughters of 
 Men." Then there was "The Henrietta" (1887), to my 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 85 
 
 mind one of Mr. Ploward's most characteristically American 
 plays, — barring a few out-of-date touches, — which might 
 very well be classed with " The Lion and the Mouse," Frank 
 Norris's "The Pit'' (dramatized by Channing Pollock), and 
 "Business is Business" ("Les Affaires sont les Affaires") in 
 which Crane acted. In claiming this distinction of previous- 
 ness for Mr. Howard, it must always be borne in mind that his 
 was pioneer treatment, which won its way in the face of man- 
 agerial prejudice and productive barrenness. " Shenandoah " 
 later became the forerunner of such a superior drama as 
 WilKam Gillette's "Secret Service." 
 
 Mr. Howard's progress toward the recognized position of 
 dean of his profession was by no means a rapid or an easy 
 one. I have before me accusations of diverse kinds regis- 
 tered against the dramatist, for there were many critics 
 who could not see originality in any of his work. In 1874, 
 when "Saratoga" (Anglicized "Brighton" by Frank Mar- 
 shall) was presented in London, the Times loudly pro- 
 claimed that the play was simply a recast of Scribe's "Les 
 Eaux." Mr. Howard protested vigorously in the newspaper 
 columns, yet he v/as dignifiedly silent when critics pointed 
 to his "Diamonds" (1872), and discovered in it distinct re- 
 flections of "Still Waters Run Deep"; or claimed that the 
 charming sentiment in "Old Love Letters" was akin in 
 form and feeling to Gilbert's "Sweethearts." 
 
 Despite the fact, for example, that a certain special re- 
 viewer was proverbially harsh in his judgments of Mr. 
 Howard, hinting that "One of Our Girls" (1885) leaned upon 
 "A Scrap of Paper" in its third act, and upon "The School 
 for Scandal" in its fourth act, should one follow those re- 
 views, there would be detected that with the appearance of 
 each new play by Mr. Howard, increasing credit and respect 
 were bestowed upon him. This was largely due to the matur- 
 ity of the dramatist's touch — to the surety of his technique. 
 
86 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 To his feminine interest, Mr. Howard added a repartee 
 which came from close observation of small detail. At 
 first, in such pieces as " Saratoga," and later, in " One of Our 
 Girls," the style bordered on the frivolous. It seemed 
 that there was but one way for him to picture the American 
 girl: by making her, amidst the conservatism of English 
 convention, a bold, frank, "natural" type, surprising every- 
 one with her freedom, her boisterousness. There was little 
 of the intensive life to be detected in her struggles, in her 
 marital misunderstandings, unless we except "The Young 
 Mrs. Winthrop." 
 
 The formula of imported drama was used by Mr. Howard; 
 in order to win his battle, he was obliged to compromise 
 somewhere. The formula prescribed duels and French in- 
 discretions; it necessitated the American characters being 
 lavish with money. A certain grace was bestowed upon the 
 feminine type, but otherwise the manner of depiction was 
 the same as that used by Taylor in his character portrayal 
 of Asa Trenchard. 
 
 The social amenities, the comedies and tragedies of smart 
 set life, are to-day very much as they were yesterday. We 
 find as many of the nouveau riche, anxious to pepper conversa- 
 tion with French phrases, as many of the so-called aristocracy 
 boasting of association with titled folk; and there are still 
 to be seen the destitute foreign noblemen — mere fortune- 
 hunters such as Mr. Howard introduced into "Aristocracy" 
 and " Kate." Snobbery has lost none of its rampant coarse- 
 ness. Yet we have outgrown this cartoon, this farce element, 
 in depicting American condition on the stage; we seek for 
 less of the incongruous. 
 
 Wall Street is just as potent a factor in the shattering of 
 homes as it was when "The Henrietta" was first produced; 
 but the framework of social drama, of the problem play, is 
 now more solid, and less prone to be shaped by the caprice 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 87 
 
 of external incident. Mr. Howard, despite the transitory 
 chat of his dialogue, impresses one with the feeling that be- 
 neath the surface incident there lay a very distinct idea — a 
 much more substantial view of life than his execution would 
 lead us to believe. His criticism of American condition was 
 always thorough and just, and his culture sense was so keen 
 that it is surprising to find how little his plays reflect the 
 solid character of his intellect. His dramas were mostly 
 received with enthusiasm, netting him a comfortable for- 
 tune. Yet, regarding their permanence there is doubt, for 
 the very reason that they are cast in a mould so easily dis- 
 carded, a mould which held only the froth of manners. 
 
 As a worker, Mr. Howard was always zealous and pains- 
 taking. His manuscripts indicate that labor and sacrifice 
 are the dramatist's watchwords. Let a doubt as to effect- 
 iveness once possess him, and he went to any amount of 
 trouble to overcome the scenic difficulty. The well-thumbed 
 volumes on the Civil War in his library were evidence of his 
 care in detail while planning "Shenandoah," the first draft 
 of which was a network of emendations. 
 
 He wrote and re-wrote a scene in "One of Our Girls" six 
 times before he could prove to his own satisfaction that the 
 original way was the only way for his particular purpose. 
 The lecture he delivered at Harvard University, in 1886, 
 applied the general laws of drama to certain alterations made 
 in "The Banker's Daughter." His object was to show the 
 student that whatever changes of primary importance were 
 made by him, affected other details in preceding and succeed- 
 ing situations. A drama is an organism, with relative spatial 
 values fluctuating according to dynamic principles. Me- 
 chanical effectiveness has its constructive equation, and char- 
 acter must develop consistently along lines of evolution and 
 of life. 
 
 But Mr. Howard, while illustrating these laws by means 
 
88 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 of the changes in his piece, also too clearly revealed in that 
 lecture a distinct danger underlying the stagecraft of his 
 day — a danger bequeathed us by the French, and engrafted 
 by Robertson and Taylor upon English drama and American 
 drama as well — a danger counteracted by the Ibsen technique, 
 with its vital ideas. The caprice of incident was more thought 
 of than the humanity of individuals ; artifice therefore largely 
 took the place of art. "One of the most important laws of 
 dramatic constru-ction," said Mr. Howard before the Harvard 
 audience, " might thus be formulated : If you want a particu- 
 lar thing done, choose a character to do it that an audience 
 will naturally expect to do it. In 'The Banker's Daughter' 
 I wanted a man to fall in love with my heroine after she was 
 a married woman, and, of course, I chose a French Count 
 for the purpose. " 
 
 We now ask again, in view of all this activity, by what 
 right is Mr. Howard called Dean of the American Dramatists? 
 He always had the interest of native playwrights at heart; 
 he fought for them unceasingly, even as ardently as Mark 
 Twain did for the author in the copyright agitations, making 
 appeal for proper protection of plays as early as 1879; he 
 founded for his craft a permanent organization, known as 
 the Dramatist Club. But more than that, he established 
 the fact of the American drama's existence, and stood ready 
 to render encouragement to the younger generation. Unlike 
 " The Master Builder," he hastened the newer school, always 
 gracious and always helpful. 
 
 We emphasize in our literary histories the importance of 
 such writers as Bret Harte, who preserved a native flavor in 
 the short story, dependent upon native life. The American 
 idea in literature has largely been subservient to local interest 
 and local need. Politically, socially, spiritually, and eco- 
 nomically, locality has governed our literary expression, and 
 has been externalized on the stage. Save in isolated ins tan- 
 
BRONSON HOWARD 89 
 
 ces, idea in American literature has in no way equalled 
 vividness of local condition. While Mr. Howard's local claim 
 was harmed by his manner of construction, he nevertheless, 
 like Robertson and Taylor, swung the pendulum across the 
 dial of contemporary life, and reflected the conventional 
 phases of contemporary society. He recognized that Boker 
 in Philadelphia had done no ordinary work; that American 
 drama, from the Revolution, was no insignificant quan- 
 tity, however varying the quality. What was needed seemed 
 to be confidence in native ability and in native discernment; 
 what was needed proved to be a local dramatic market for 
 modern wares. Mr. Howard was the founder of such a 
 market. It was confidence on his part that cleared the way 
 for the present. And by right of this struggle, dramatic 
 history should stamp him, as others in his family have been 
 stamped, as pioneer in his particular field. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 Mr. Howard died in 1908. His plays appeared in the following 
 
 order, the star indicating that they have been published in French's 
 
 "Standard Drama": 
 
 "Fantine" (1864), "Saratoga" (1870), "Diamonds" (1872), "Moor- 
 croft; or, The Double Wedding" (1874), "Hurricanes" (1878, 
 — called "Truth" in England), "Old Love Letters" * (1878), 
 "The Banker's Daughter" * (1878 — called in England "The 
 Old Love and the New"; also known as "Lillian's Last 
 Love'), "Baron Rudolph" (1881), "Young Mrs. Winthrop" * 
 (1882), "One of Our Girls" * (1885), "Met by Chance" (1887), 
 "The Henrietta"* (1887), "Shenandoah"* (1889), "Aristoc- 
 racy" * (1892), "Kate" * (1906 — Harper & Bros.). 
 
 In 1879, Mr. Howard also wrote "Wives," in which scenes from 
 Moliere's "L'Ecole de Maris" and "L'Ecole des Femmes" 
 were blended. He likewise wrote "Peter Stuyvesant " (1899), in 
 conjunction with Professor Brander Matthews. In the casts 
 presenting the comedies we note such names as Sara Jewett, 
 W. J. LeMoyne, J. H. Stoddart, George Clarke, Henry Miller, 
 Agnes Booth, E. H. Sothern, Viola Allen, and Wilton Lackaye. 
 The early actors were the most important, and they included 
 Fanny Davenport, Clara Morris, and their contemporaries. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 JAMES A. HERNE AND THE REALISTIC DRAMA 
 
 It is rarely that the American people have touched the soil 
 in literature, but when they have, the result has been of the 
 most distinctive order. As a nation, we are too young to 
 have realized any large and original problems in literature. 
 Our authors have been more or less imitators of English 
 models, and even to-day our stage is attempting to explain 
 American conditions by means of a technique which is not a 
 native technique. We have perhaps brought the short story 
 to a stage of perfection which can only be equaled by a few 
 of the French writers; but our poetry has been largely 
 imitative, our essays reminiscent of the eighteenth century 
 flavor in England, and our fiction by no means fraught with 
 the full value of American life and American characteristics. 
 The same may be said of American drama, although at the 
 present time there is a decided tendency on the part of the 
 popular dramatist to deal with subjects that are closely 
 related to the lives of American audiences. The position 
 which W. D. Ho wells occupies is assuredly one of the most 
 original impulses evident in the recent history of American 
 letters. He has been the means of educating the people 
 away from the stereotyped formulas of romanticism; and 
 while he has done much to create a realistic rut in fiction, he 
 has nevertheless enforced the undoubted fact that there is 
 as much richness, if not indeed more truth, in the common 
 life of the land, as in the idealism which has no intimate 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 91 
 
 relation with the fibre of the community. Unfortunately, 
 we are prone, in our literary criticism, to overlook the work 
 that is being done along the same lines in American drama. 
 Take any handbook of literature, and note how absolutely 
 the' activity of the American playwright is ignored. The 
 literary critic has not yet awakened to the fact of the impor- 
 tance of a body of native dramaturgy. Otherwise, did he 
 know the history of playwriting, he would not show so thor- 
 oughly his ignorance of one of the rare strains in American 
 drama — as distinctive, as invigorating, and as important 
 as that impulse given by Mr. Howells to American letters. 
 I refer to the solid calibre of the dramas of James A. Heme. 
 
 In his book on "Criticism and Fiction," Mr. Howells, 
 speaking of the imitative instinct of the average American 
 writer, says truthfully that in general "he is instructed to 
 idealize his personages, that is, to take the lifelikeness out of 
 them, and put the booklikeness into them." And he adds 
 furthermore, as a hopeful sign, that "now we are beginning 
 to see and to say that no author is an authority, except in 
 those moments when he held his ear close to Nature's lips, 
 and caught her very accents." Probably our universities 
 are overdoing the desire to discount the originality of an 
 author, in the zeal to submit his work to the test of those 
 scientific principles underlying the theory of comparative 
 literature. As far as the sane evaluation of realism is con- 
 cerned, that author is real who faithfully interprets the en- 
 vironment with which he is most familiar. And in this 
 respect, no one can lay better claim to the highest realiza- 
 tion of the term than Mr. Heme himself. 
 
 Considered in the light of sound standards, he may be said 
 to represent the most original strain that the American 
 drama has produced. Let us grant that in his plots he in- 
 vents conventional situations which are detrimental to the 
 perfection of his stagecraft. Let us acknowledge that his 
 
92 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 comedy is ofttimes low comedy, although his humor is of the 
 very kindliest and of the most human qualit}^ Let us fur- 
 thermore realize fully that, having acted in the old school, 
 having assumed characters of diverse range, Mr. Heme un- 
 consciously resorted to an invention which was more imi- 
 tative than original. Yet, notwithstanding this, he is en- 
 titled to the very highest consideration, because of the fact 
 that in the midst of romantic, melodramatic, and old-fashioned 
 tragic conceptions, which found favor in the eyes of the 
 American public, he put his ear close to the heart of the 
 common life, and drew from the most ordinary experiences 
 the poetry of a simple, fundamental existence. 
 
 The surprising characteristic which strikes one after having 
 read Mr. Heme's manuscripts, is the wonderful clarity of 
 vision which, through the medium of the most matter-of- 
 fact details, through the wonderful power of clear and direct 
 expression, could raise the common level of daily existence 
 to the realm of the most tragic drama on the one hand, and 
 to the realm of the most genial, warm-hearted, and pure 
 rural comedy on the other. This is not over-exaggeration 
 or over-enthusiasm, because one cannot help realizing the 
 faults in Mr. Heme's technique, through the very existence 
 in the midst of those faults of the highest type of dramatic 
 literature. 
 
 His work, as a whole, is only another illustration of the 
 undoubted fact that American life — the true American life 
 — lies between great cities; that there is more of the native 
 stamina in the small community than in the abnormal 
 community, where a mixture of all nations constitutes the 
 civic body. Mr. Howells has studied the humanity of this 
 intermediate life, and his work is distinctively native; 
 whereas that of Mrs. Edith Wharton is wholly imitative of 
 the English school, as a certain class of life in America is 
 imitative of English life. 
 
Photo, by J. A'. Stevens &■ Son Co. 
 
 Jamp:s a. IIekjve 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 93 
 
 When Mr. Heme's attention was drawn away from the 
 melodrama with which he had met favor, he seemed to have 
 been prompted by a kind of intuitive reaUzation of what the 
 modern movement in Hterature was to be. Some would like 
 to say that the influences which were brought to bear upon 
 him at the time he wrote "Margaret Fleming" and "Griffith 
 Davenport" were the foreign influences of such men as Tol- 
 stoi and Ibsen; but the impetus given to Mr. Heme was more 
 inward than external. He may be said to have been endowed 
 with that luminosity of spiritual vision which saw the even- 
 tual potency of the common life, and which kept him, even 
 at an advanced age, thoroughly attuned to the progressive 
 movements, making him an ardent reader of the philosophic 
 thinkers, as well as a warm adherent of the economic theo- 
 ries of Henry George. 
 
 Mr. Heme was born on February 1, 1839, at Cohoes, New 
 York, of Irish parentage, his father, Patrick Heme, being 
 a tradesman of the town. Save for the fact that he received 
 the bare rudiments of an education, Mr. Heme, intellectu- 
 ally as well as materially, may be taken as a type of that 
 self-made man which we Americans rightfully exalt. In his 
 early years he had to earn his livelihood, and this he did in 
 various subordinate positions; while, with the yearning of 
 the average boy, his tastes were turned toward the sea. 
 Though he did not, with the usual inclination of the average 
 boy, slip off and ship upon a merchantman, he retained, until 
 the day of his death, an insatiable love of the water. The 
 rebellion against conditions, however, resulted in his running 
 away at the age of twenty, and joining a theatrical company 
 which was playing at the Adelphi Theatre in Troy. Here 
 he appeared during April, 1859, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 Upon the authority of Clapp, however, it is said that his 
 first appearance was made in an amateur performance of 
 "Toodles," which took place a short while previous to this 
 
94 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 at Schenectady. At the Adelphi he supported James B. 
 Roberts, assuming such characters as Horatio, Cassia, and 
 Bassanio. His uncle was the treasurer of the house. 
 
 That Heme was equal to any emergency may be inferred 
 from the fact that one evening, when Roberts appeared as 
 Richard III, the young actor was ticketed for the three 
 roles of Tressel, Oxford, and Buckingham. He was indefati- 
 gable in his ambition, although at the time he must have 
 been sorely pressed for the necessary income which would 
 supply him with a theatrical wardrobe. For, during one 
 summer, he returned to a brush factory in the neighborhood 
 of Cohoes, working away to eke out his small salary, at the 
 same time, with the artful enthusiasm of a young man, 
 keeping his father in ignorance of his true profession. 
 
 His next engagement was at the Gaiety Theatre in Albany; 
 and from there he went to the Holliday Street Theatre in 
 Baltimore, which was under the management of Ford. There 
 he remained until 1864; and it should be recorded that he 
 likewise played in Washington at the theatre in which Lin- 
 coln was killed. In 1869, he was for a period manager of the 
 New York Grand Opera House; and thereafter he toured 
 with Susan Denning along the Pacific slope. Then followed 
 several seasons as leading man with Lucille Western, during 
 which engagement he assumed such parts as Bill Sykes and 
 Sir Francis Levison, succeeding E. L. Davenport in the re- 
 pertoire roles, Mr. Heme's first wife was Miss Helen Wes- 
 tern, whom he married on July 17, 1866. 
 
 When the actor jBnally went to Baldwin's Theatre, in San 
 Francisco, it was under the management of Thomas Maguire. 
 He served in the capacity of stage director, as well as assum- 
 ing an infinite number of roles, among those to be remembered 
 because of their human unctuousness being his Dickens 
 characterizations of Daniel Peggotty and Captain Cuttle. It 
 was while serving in this capacity that David Belasco, a 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 95 
 
 much younger man than Mr. Heme, came under his influence 
 and profited by his training. For though Mr. Belasco had 
 much originality and enthusiasm, his work needed the guid- 
 ance of such an experienced actor as Mr. Heme. And it 
 may be said that this meeting with Belasco first suggested 
 to the stage manager his own powers as a writer of 
 plays. 
 
 From now on, the career of James A. Heme may be con- 
 sidered entirely from the standpoint of his literary develop- 
 ment and of his personal expansion. For, peculiarly, events 
 in his life are not so significant as the intimate association 
 with a very few people, who might be said to have acted as 
 much upon his artistic unfolding as any of the subtle forces 
 which are supposed to mould the characters of men. The 
 most important event in Mr. Heme's life, both intellectually 
 and spiritually, was his second marriage with Miss Katherine 
 Corcoran, on April 3, 1878. 
 
 As a matter of mere romantic record, it is interesting to 
 note that one evening, during Mr. Heme's engagement in 
 San Francisco and before his second marriage, v/hile he was 
 playing Bill Sykes, there was present in the gallery a very 
 much excited and overwrought girl; this happened to be 
 Katherine Corcoran. It is also interesting to read, that in 
 November, 1877, Julia Melville, a dramatic reader, had a 
 pupil of whom she was especially proud, and one whom she 
 was anxious to have Mr. Heme see. So he slipped into the 
 room one morning, to hear this young girl while she was at 
 work; it was Katherine Corcoran. Mrs. Heme's father had 
 fought on the Union side in the Civil War. While still in 
 her teens, she went to California, where after studying, she 
 gained experience in stock at a Portland theatre, thereafter 
 joining James O'Neill and William Seymour at the Baldwin 
 Theatre. One of her initial successes was as Peg Woffing- 
 ton in "Masks and Faces/' 
 
96 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 There was not a move which Mr. Heme was to make in 
 the future that did not bear the impress of her inspiration. 
 She it was who started him definitely on his career as a dram- 
 atist; she it was who encouraged him in those hours when, 
 after having written "Margaret Fleming" and "The Rev. 
 Griffith Davenport," he found himself shut off from all 
 managerial hearing, because of the fact that he had deter- 
 mined to cut aloof from melodrama and to seek for the truth 
 in the commonplace. 
 
 From his career thus hastily sketched, there are a few 
 significant factors to be gleaned. While at the Baldwin 
 Theatre, Mr. Heme came under the influence of the Bouci- 
 cault drama and of that type of melodrama which was rep- 
 resented by such a success as "The Danicheffs." So that 
 it is not surprising to find "Hearts of Oak," "The Minute 
 Men," and "Drifting Apart" tinged with those large emo- 
 tions which might almost be said to lack subtlety. Even in 
 "Shore Acres, " during the scene in which Uncle Nat struggles 
 with Martin in his effort to light the signal lamp, the sen- 
 sational is very much in evidence; but the unerring art of 
 Mr. Heme saved him from the accusation of intense, glaring 
 melodrama. He understood thoroughly the balance between 
 tension and quietude, and there is no bit of stage writing 
 more natural, more cheerful, and more real than the act 
 which succeeded this violent one in "Shores Acres," Uncle 
 Nat preparing the Christmas stockings. Those who are for- 
 tunate enough to recollect the wonderful naturalness of Mr. 
 Heme's acting, will always point to the final curtain of this 
 play, where Uncle Nat, left alone on the stage, by the very 
 flexibility of his facial expression, depicted the full beauty of 
 his character, as he closed up the room for the night, put out 
 the lamps, and, lighted only by the glow from the fire in the 
 stove, slowly left the room as the cuckoo clock struck twelve. 
 Such work, of which Mr. Heme as an actor was capable, is 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 97 
 
 to a certain extent the realization of Maeterlinck's idea of 
 the static drama. 
 
 After seeing "Shore Acres '* in 1893, Henry George wrote: 
 
 "I cannot too much congratulate you upon your success. 
 You have done what you have sought to do — made a play 
 pure and noble that people will come to hear. You have 
 taken the strength of realism and added to it the strength 
 that comes from the wider truth that realism fails to see; 
 and in the simple portrayal of homely life, touched a univer- 
 sal chord. . . . Who, save you, can bring out the character 
 you have created — a character which to others, as to me, 
 must have recalled the tender memory of some sweet saint 
 of God." 
 
 Having made a comfortable fortune with the success of 
 "Hearts of Oak," Mr. Heme's progress, up to the time of 
 "Shore Acres," was marked by persistent opposition and 
 lack of financial success. This initial play of his, which, 
 when first produced at the Baldwin Theatre on September 
 9, 1879, was known as "Chums," was, in many of its de- 
 tails, based on "The Mariner's Compass," by Henry Leslie. 
 Its main plot was used again in "Sag Harbor;" and despite 
 the fact that it contained many stereotyped romantic speeches, 
 it is well at the outset to note that gift which Mr. Heme 
 possessed — the gift of simplicity, which never deserted him, 
 no matter how old-fashioned and unoriginal some of his 
 scenes might be. There are countless plays and stories 
 dealing with a marriage between a girl and her guardian, 
 which at first is over-clouded by the fact that the girl loves 
 another, but which finally ripens into a full happiness and a 
 satisfactory ending. One cannot quite accept those heroes 
 of fiction or drama, however mature and settled, who would 
 give up their wives because of a conscience. 
 
 But these incongruities were more than overbalanced by 
 Mr. Heme's inimitable handling of the commonplace in 
 
98 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 life. He was able to breathe into his dialogue those small, 
 playful expressions that lighten up the whole character. At 
 one moment serious, he never allowed himself — except in 
 the case of "Margaret Fleming" — to subject his audiences 
 to unrelieved strain. The papers, in receiving his so-called 
 domestic dramas, showed surprise over the effectiveness of 
 the commonplace. They were not used to the little happen- 
 ings of home life, to the glorification of those situations which 
 abound in comradeship, and of those quiet scenes with a baby 
 which are successful on the stage only when the actor pos- 
 sesses that great art which alone knows how to deal with quiet 
 detail. 
 
 "Hearts of Oak" exhibited the influence of Dickens in 
 its character portrayal. Judged by the standards that we 
 now have in these times of ultra-realism, we might call the 
 sentiment old-fashioned, we might even notice certain speeches 
 which point a moral rather than adorn the tale. No one, 
 however, could ever accuse Mr. Heme of being "preachy," 
 — he had that exquisite sense of justice and of the fitness of 
 things which, when the time came for him to write "The 
 Rev. Griffith Davenport," showed itself to a high degree, 
 inasmuch as, dealing with a circuit rider of the South and 
 likewise with the problem of slavery, he could have fallen 
 into the error of the average dramatist who, handling the 
 same subject, has generally falsified the truth in attempting 
 to thrust forward personal theories. "Drifting Apart" 
 is regarded as one of the most powerful temperance sermons 
 ever put on the stage, unless we except the successful melo- 
 drama, "Drink." Yet there is little of distinction in the 
 actual script of the piece, save the suggested possibilities in 
 the acting that were so marked on its first presentation at the 
 People's Theatre in New York, on May 7, 1888. Mrs. 
 Heme assumed the role of Mary Miller, and infused it with 
 a subtle interpretation of art for truth's sake, a character- 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 99 
 
 istic most distinctive in her work. Mr. Garland spoke of it 
 in these terms: "It was so utterly opposed to the tragedy of 
 the legitimate. Here was tragedy that appalled and fasci- 
 nated like the great fact of living. . . . The fourth act was 
 like one of Millet's paintings." 
 
 And here it is well to note a wonderful point marking Mr. 
 Heme's activity. His lines of life were so cast that he was 
 denied the advantages of the student, although he possessed 
 the mind of the scholar. Without any apparent effort on his 
 part, he absorbed the best literature, and it was an easy matter 
 for him to reach the heart of any subject which attracted his 
 attention. Although he set himself down to write a melo- 
 drama when he began "The Minute Men," and although, 
 because of this very self -consciousness on his part, he failed in 
 his attempt, he was nevertheless successful in attaining a cer- 
 tain atmosphere of historical reality, akin to the true Revo- 
 lutionary spirit. This was more solidly and more artistically 
 accomplished in " The Rev. Griffith Davenport, " ^ which is 
 one of Mr. Heme's best contributions to dramatic literature, 
 however much we might be inclined to claim that "Sag 
 Harbor" contains his most finished writing. Of all Civil 
 War dramas it is assuredly the finest example of a balance of 
 tmth, artistic situation, and equal justice to both sides, which 
 is lacking in "Shenandoah" and "The Heart of Maryland." 
 The point of view is one which might be said to be as much 
 Southern as Northern. The principle of slavery was antag- 
 onistic to Mr. Heme's social philosophy; and should the 
 bias be found at all in this play, it would lie in his interpre- 
 tation of duty as confronting Griffith Davenport. For the 
 Southerner was fighting as much to sustain State rights as 
 to protect his slave property; historical fact will show that 
 at the beginning of the war, slavery as an institution was 
 
 1 Based on Helen H. Gardner's novel, "The UnoflBcial Patriot." 
 
100 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 decreasing through an economic, evolutionary change. Dav- 
 enport's struggle was not so much that of a Southerner who 
 was torn between his duty to State and his duty to country, 
 as it was the conception of Mr. Heme, whose idea of duty 
 was wholly from the standpoint of country, and not from 
 that of State. The atmosphere of the drama is very success- 
 fully obtained through the handling of the simple details of 
 Southern life. Perhaps there was an over-accentuation of 
 the darky characteristics, but they were not the customary 
 antics of the stage minstrel or of the conventional Southern 
 drama. As a playwright, Mr. Heme infused into his darkies 
 that same strain of humanity which he is said to have put 
 into a negro character-part he once played with such deter- 
 mined and realistic villainy. 
 
 It is significant to obtain Mr. Heme's own estimate of his 
 different plays. We find him analyzing the cause for this 
 success and for that failure; we hear him making a confession 
 that although "Hearts of Oak," in its dealing with Marble- 
 head folk, was a new departure, since it had neither hero 
 nor villain, it was crude in construction. With a simple 
 naivete, he recognized in "The Minute Men," with its Paul 
 Revere 's ride and its Battle of Lexington, a step nearer the 
 truth; while in its character of Dorothy Foxglove it afforded 
 a "glorious" role for Mrs. Heme. He was frank enough to 
 confess that in "Drifting Apart," his story of Gloucester 
 fishermen, based on "Mary, the Fisher's Child," there was 
 displayed a weak comedy element in the introduction of the 
 stage soubrette and the funny man. Even in " Margaret Flem- 
 ing," he evidently felt that there were didactic spots in the 
 dialogue. So that by this self-criticism of the artist, we are 
 able, to a certain extent, to catch glimpses of the whole-souled 
 sincerity of the man, who sought truth externally, simply 
 because he saw clearly its spirit. As he has written: "Art 
 is a personal expression of life. The finer the form and color 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 101 
 
 and the larger the truth, the higher the art. . . . Art is uni- 
 versal; it can be claimed by no man, creed, race, or time, 
 and all art is good." 
 
 The change that came over Mr. Heme after having pro- 
 duced "Drifting Apart " was coincident with an intellectual 
 and spiritual change affecting both himself and his wife. 
 As I have said, they were mentally receptive of new ideas. 
 They were following, in Huxley, in Spencer, in Howells, in 
 Tolstoi, those tendencies, which, attracting one to higher 
 conceptions of ethical duty and of social justice, brought one's 
 view-point nearer to the common life. Mrs. Heme was 
 always mentally keen. Hamlin Garland writes of her: 
 "To see her radiant with intellectual enthusiasm, one has 
 but to start a discussion of the nebular hypothesis, or to 
 touch upon the atomic theory, or doubt the inconceivability 
 of matter. She is perfectly oblivious to space and time if 
 she can get some one to discuss Flammarion's supersensuous 
 world of force, Mr. George's theory of land-holding, or 
 Spencer's law of progress." 
 
 The next artistic effort that Mr. Heme put his hand to 
 was by no means fraught with elements of popularity. It 
 was truth laid bare, with no gloss of romanticism about it, 
 however much it might be saturated with feeling; souls 
 stark naked in their sin, and in their vigorous dealing with 
 sin. One marvels, after having read "Margaret Fleming," 
 what there is of tangible literary value in such a story, for 
 one undoubtedly feels its value. It proves nothing, it has no 
 direct intent; it is a segment of life painted with no idea of 
 gaining art effects, but showing how very close to life one's 
 vision may be. The realism is almost pitiless in its conse- 
 quences; it is almost photographic in its detail. It is the 
 commonplace story of the man who goes wrong, and whose 
 illegitimate child is nurtured by his wife after she has dis- 
 covered his transgressions. It is the close tragedy of a 
 
102 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 woman's struggle to estimate at its full worth the animal 
 instinct in man. 
 
 For the student of American drama, Mr. Heme's activity 
 as a writer falls easily into two classes. We may narrow our 
 consideration down, so as to include "Margaret Fleming" 
 and "The Rev. Griffith Davenport" on the one hand, with 
 "Shore Acres" and "Sag Harbor" on the other; the former 
 representing his realism, and the latter representing — if 
 we must designate him by a term — his rural characteristics 
 which were more vital than those of Denman Thompson, as 
 seen in "The Old Homestead. "^ When "Margaret Flem- 
 ing" was ready for presentation, the dramatist found him- 
 self in a peculiar position, for no manager dared risk capital 
 on a piece so freed from what the public was usually accus- 
 tomed to, and so devoid of a happy ending. Likewise, there 
 were certain situations which appeared to shock the conven- 
 tional taste. It was at this time that Hamlin Garland 
 began to take that interest in the Heme family which rap- 
 idly ripened into the deepest friendship. He and Mr. 
 Howells seemed to recognize the rare originality which lay 
 in the simple style of Mr. Heme's work. Even in "Drift- 
 ing Apart," melodramatic though it was, there were certain 
 direct, incisive, and simple passages of writing that partook 
 of the very highest and best qualities in realism. 
 
 So that, naturally, "Margaret Fleming "^ perforce appealed 
 to these two literary men, who became so far interested as 
 not only to suggest the idea, but to further the scheme of 
 leasing Chickering Hall in Boston, and of presenting the 
 play to an intellectual assemblage which, unfortunately, is 
 
 1 Mr. Thompson (1833-1911) was not prolific. "The Old Home- 
 stead" was originally called "Joshua Whitcomb." 
 
 2 "Shore Acres" was really being evolved by Mr. Heme before 
 the writing of "Margaret Fleming." The play was dedicated to 
 his children, Julie, Chrystal, and Dorothy, 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 103 
 
 difficult to gather together for a theatre performance. The 
 piece ran for several weeks, but it was a financial failure, al- 
 though the press recognized a certain subtle force, a certain 
 plain and vital power which were rarely seen upon the stage. 
 This was in the year 1890, when Ibsen was practically un- 
 Imown to the American theatre-going public, when the slight- 
 est deviation from the accepted conventions of morality was 
 regarded as boldness. It was this attitude of mind more 
 than anything which the play itself contained, that involved 
 it in such disastrous consequences. When the piece was 
 revived at the Art Theatre in Chicago, during 1907, with 
 Miss Chrystal Heme in the title role and with Mrs. Heme 
 as stage manager, all of the critics recognized its forcefulness 
 and its serious simplicity, deploring the fact that it had re- 
 mained in obscurity for so long a time, when in every respect 
 one was justified in regarding it as a high specimen of Ameri- 
 can dramatic art. 
 
 Mr. Heme's next piece, "The Rev. Griffith Davenport,"^ 
 met with the same cold reception, and it is natural to find 
 him becoming somewhat discouraged as to the possibilities of 
 carrying the American public with him along the lines which 
 meant most to him, and which he was best fitted to follow. 
 So he determined thereafter to add popular qualities to his 
 stark realism. Not for a moment could he have discarded 
 his innate ability to deal with simple things; but he drew 
 upon the stock subterfuges of the old school, at times becom- 
 ing a little over-sentimental, whereas one of the beauties of 
 "Margaret Fleming" was the depth of its tragic sentiment. 
 
 The interstices between the completion of his several 
 pieces were filled up by Mr. Heme's acting, and likewise 
 by his excellent stage management, which was always in 
 demand for large productions. There are some who believe 
 
 ^ It was begun in the summer of 1894, and not produced until 
 1899. 
 
104 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 that as a stage manager Mr. Heme's influence upon the pres- 
 ent is more marked than as a dramatist. Through kindly 
 guidance and illuminating interpretation, he impressed his 
 methods upon all of the actors who were under his care; and 
 many on the stage to-day regard Mr. Heme as the one force 
 which meant most to them in their careers. But in the 
 future, Mr. Heme's position will be dependent entirely upon 
 his value as a dramatist. 
 
 There are a few facts, leading up to the close of Mr. Heme's 
 life, which have to be regarded. After going to Boston, 
 around 1890, he lived in a modest little home at Ashmont, 
 in the suburbs. The failure of "Margaret Fleming" was 
 coincident with a rather unsettled period in the history of 
 literary Boston, a period which — to use Mr. Garland's 
 expression — was marked by a discovery of the fact that 
 to meet success every one had to go to New York. So that 
 about the same time he, Mr. Howells, and Mr. Heme all 
 went to that city. It was not until 1894 that Mr. Heme 
 moved with his family to his estate in Southampton, Long 
 Island, where the dramatist did much of his final writing, 
 and where he was able to satisfy his love of the sea and his 
 thorough enjoyment of home life. At this time one would 
 be sure to note his fondness for the fields and his enthusiasm 
 for tennis and bicycling. Simple of heart and boyish in 
 action, there was nothing so important that he would not 
 spare the time to mend a broken doll for his daughter Dorothy. 
 Here also he was drawn more and more into interests other 
 than those dealing with drama. His reading became broader, 
 his political opinions became pronounced, in fact so pro- 
 nounced as to demand his time for public speaking in the 
 interests of Henry George. So ardent was he in his 
 acceptance of the doctrine of free access to the soil, that 
 his theatrical manager at one time advised him to be more 
 careful, inasmuch as his theatre audiences might resent his 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 105 
 
 political views. But Mr. Heme was not a man to fear 
 consequences. To the day of his death, June 2, 1901, he 
 was an ardent supporter of Bryan. 
 
 It is hard to separate a consideration of Mr. Heme the 
 dramatist, from an estimate of Mr. Heme the man. His 
 plays contain unmistakable signs of that wonderful kindli- 
 ness of spirit which was so marked in his daily association 
 with people. He was a man who, in exterior, might be con- 
 sidered blunt; but Nature often endows a person gifted with 
 a love for the human with a certain protection against a too 
 ready acceptance of everyone. And so that guest was for- 
 tunate who succeeded in breaking through the reserve, 
 behind which lay the true James A. Heme, inveterate joker, 
 good comrade, and active thinker. In him there was an in- 
 exhaustible fund of joy and, as one critic said, he was always 
 intellectually young. This was strikingly evident in his 
 association with his own children, the family comprising 
 three daughters and one son: Julie Heme, who has already 
 very creditably illustrated her inherited gift of playwriting 
 in "Richter's Wife" — given a hearing several years ago; 
 Chrystal Heme, who has done some distinctive acting; and 
 Dorothy Heme who was on the stage for several years, 
 appearing in "Shore Acres." The three have all appeared 
 severally and together in the juvenile roles of their father's 
 plays. The son. Jack, is already exhibiting in his school 
 career certain characteristics of his father. The household 
 to-day is permeated with those kindly memories which be- 
 speak more than anything else the full force of Mr. Heme's 
 influence. A mixture of Irish keenness of humor with vigor 
 of ideas marks the daily life of the Heme family, and during 
 the dramatist's lifetime it was just this distinctive vein which 
 was found in the general atmosphere around him. 
 
 There are some men born to see clearly, to be zealous 
 after the vital principles of life, the constant truths of the 
 
106 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 ages, — the interchange of thoughts and ideas which elevate 
 in the effort to hve our highest and best. These are the 
 thoughts which were usually upon the lips of Mr. Heme. He 
 was a man of the present, drawing from the moment what 
 was truest from his standpoint. He loved the theatre, but 
 he was always careful, even in the midst of his stage direc- 
 tions, to call attention to those realistic bits of acting which 
 one identifies with life rather than with the simulation of 
 life. 
 
 He took his art seriously ; ^ he recognized in it a social force 
 and a civilizing factor. He believed that truth in art was 
 as much within the grasp of the stage as of the pulpit, that 
 the theatre was as much to be upheld in the light of a temple 
 for the work of the dramatist, as a museum was to be con- 
 sidered a civilizing factor in its capacity as temple for the 
 art of the painter. The theatre to him was a place for the 
 upholding of good. He once said: "We must not condemn 
 an art or an institution because a corrupt civilization has 
 affected it." He further said that "the province of the 
 theatre is not to preach objectively, but to teach subjectively." 
 He recognized that an art was vicious only because of the 
 existence of lovers of vicious art. He was broad in his ideas; 
 his voice was always heard in the cause of liberty — whether 
 political or artistic. He was to a certain extent an individu- 
 alist, recognizing that the Kingdom of God is within us; yet 
 according to his own v/ords: "No individual can emanci- 
 pate the race; he cannot even emancipate his own calling. 
 The race must be taught to emancipate itself. " 
 
 We do not find Mr. Heme afraid to state his own position, 
 to formulate his own belief. What was he spiritually but 
 a firm upholder of the force of deed, over and above creed? 
 As though it were his own declaration of faith, he wrote: 
 
 1 Mr. Heme was one of the first actors to make c stand against 
 the binding influence of the Theatrical Syndicate. 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 107 
 
 " I believe that every human being has a certain amount of 
 divinity — that is, of God — within him; just as much of God 
 as he is capable of holding. And he gives out just as much of 
 that divinity as he is capable of expressing. And I believe 
 that if he were not bound down by unjust social laws, that 
 if he were free, the divinity would grow and develop and prop- 
 agate its specie. In other words, I believe that when we 
 free men, when we free labor, we will free art, we will free 
 the Church, and elevate the theatre, and not until then. " 
 
 This conviction, this recognition of the spiritual in the 
 material, this connection of the facts of life with the unknown 
 forces in the world, were not confined to theoretical discus- 
 sions. Mr. Heme's political convictions were likewise 
 founded upon convictions within himself. During the 
 Henry George campaign, when he took the stump in the 
 cause of single tax, we find him connecting art with the civic 
 life of the people, we find him realizing, as only a man can 
 who recognizes that art is an expression of life, that the pro- 
 ducers and the non-producers of the world may be regarded 
 from the standpoint of dealing in spirit as well as of dealing 
 in wheat and hemp and tobacco. Art, whether it be the 
 shaping of a statue, the writing of a sonnet, or the growing of 
 a prize ear of corn, has a common point of contact. And 
 so again we hear him saying : " The pen, the easel, the chisel, 
 the harp, the sock and buskin, are in reality tools of labor; 
 and the men who wield them are laborers, and their interests 
 are swayed by the welfare and prosperity of those who till 
 the soil, shear the sheep, and weave the cloth. " 
 
 There are two characteristic notes throughout Mr. Heme's 
 plays, which stand as a fair indication of the man. We 
 find his love of the beautiful in the sense that truth alone 
 is beautiful; and that he approved of Enneking's belief 
 that "the ideal is the choicest expression of the real," is 
 sufficient measure of his high moral outlook upon life. We 
 
108 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 note his realization of the human qualities which underlie 
 all nature; and it may be further added that he had that 
 pride of race, that instinct of the parental which were so well 
 exhibited in "Margaret Fleming/' and in such comments 
 as these: "Maternity I consider the noblest theme of human 
 kind; and I have no patience with that false prudery which 
 would keep from young people truths they ought to know 
 about in their purest and holiest sense. " 
 
 Mr. Heme is little known, outside of a limited number of 
 people in this country. Now that he is dead, it is hard to 
 secure actors who can fill roles that he usually assumed 
 with such fulness of interpretation. William Archer has 
 from time to time called the English public's attention to 
 the plays of America's most distinctive dramatist. But 
 unfortunately, the English public has only seen the rural 
 pieces, slightly amended to accord with English understand- 
 ing. Even we in America have not been fully awakened to 
 what Mr. Heme means in the general dramatic and literary 
 development. He was a writer of direct and simple prose; 
 his images were not involved, his characters were not ob- 
 scured by symbolistic motives. In his narrative, in his 
 descriptions — when he was at his best, one is reminded of 
 the vigorous prose of Lincoln; a direct speech based not on 
 any effort for effect, but prompted by desire to say something, 
 or to tell something in the clearest manner possible. And 
 in closing, it were well to quote one paragraph from a speech 
 of Mr. Heme's, which stands out above all others because 
 of the fact that it represents the simplicity, the depth, and 
 the whole-souled sincerity of the man. Moreover, it stands 
 as a beautiful bit of prose. The quotation relates to his 
 turning from the writing of "Margaret Fleming" to a con- 
 sideration of "The Hawthornes" — which later became 
 "Shore Acres": 
 
 " Mrs. Heme had gone with two of our daughters to spend 
 
JAMES A. HERNE 109 
 
 a few weeks of the summer at Lemoyne, on Frenchman's 
 Bay, in Maine, and insisted that I should come there and 
 work on the play, and get the benefit of true color and Maine 
 atmosphere; and I went. What an exalted idea of God one 
 gets, down in that old Pine State. One must recognize the 
 sublimity which constantly manifests itself there. It is 
 worth something to live for two whole months on French- 
 man's Bay, that beautiful inconstant bay, one minute white 
 with rage, the next all smiles and gently lapping the foot- 
 hills of old Mount Desert; with the purple mist on the Blue 
 Hills in the distance on the one hand, the Schoodic range on 
 the other; the perfume of the pine trees in every breath 
 you inhale, the roar of the ocean eight miles away, and the 
 bluest of blue skies overarching all. In such a spot as that 
 a man must realize, if he has never realized it before, that 
 he and this planet are one, and part of the universal whole. " 
 
 NOTE 
 
 None of Mr. Heme's plays have been published. The only copies 
 extant of " Margaret Fleming" and "The Rev. Griffith Davenport" 
 were burned in a fire that totally destroyed "Heme Oaks," Dec. 11, 
 1909. The following references will be of use to the student: 
 "Mr. and Mrs. Heme." Hamlin Garland. Arena, October, 1891, 
 
 pp. 543-60. 
 "Old Stock Days in the Theatre." James A. Heme. Arena, 6:401, 
 
 September, 1892. 
 "On a Barn Roof." Julie Adrienne Heme. Arena, December, 1893, 
 
 pp. 131-33. 
 "Mask or Mirror." B. O. Flower. Arena, 8:304, 1893. 
 "Truth for Tmth's Sake in Drama." James A. Heme. Arena, 17: 
 
 361-70, Feb., 1897. [This was used as a lecture before the 
 
 Home Congress at Cotillion Hall, Boston, Oct. 27, 1896. On 
 
 Jan. 31, 1897, Mr. Heme appeared in the pulpit of the First 
 
 Congregational Church, Kansas City, and delivered a lecture 
 
 on "The Theatre as It Is."] 
 "James A. Heme: Actor, Dramatist, and Man." An appreciation 
 
 by Hamlin Garland, J. J. Enneking, and B. O. Flower. Arena, 
 
 26:282-92, September, 1901. 
 
no THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 "James A. Heme in Griffith Davenport." Marco Tiempo. Arena, 
 
 22:375, Sept. 1899. 
 "Rev. Griffith Davenport." J. Corbin, Harp. Wk., 43:139, 213; 
 
 John D. Barry, Lit. W., Bost., 30:57; Howells, Literature, 4: 
 
 265-66. 
 "Margaret Fleming." Howells. Harp. Mag., Editor's Study, 83: 
 
 478, August, 1891. 
 "Heme and his New Play, 'Sag Harbor'." F. Wayne. NaVl Mag., 
 
 Bost., 11:393. 
 "The American Stage." Third Article. William Archer. Pall Mall 
 
 Magazine, 20:23-37. 
 "Players of the Present." John Bouv6 Clapp and Edwin Francis 
 
 Edgett. Dunlap Soc, pt. 1, 1899, p. 148. 
 "The Stage in America." Norman Hap-good. Macmillan. Chap. 
 
 Ill, "Our Two Ablest Dramatists." 
 "Famous Actors of To-day in America." Lewis C. Strang. Page, 
 
 1900. Chap. II, "James A. Heme." 
 The following is a list of Mr. Heme's plays, with the dates of first 
 productions : 
 "Hearts of Oak" (first produced under the name of " Churns "): 
 
 Baldwin's Theatre, San Francisco, Cal., Sept. 9, 1879. 
 "Minute Men ": Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa., April 5, 
 
 1886. 
 "Drifting Apart" (first called "Mary, the Fisherman's Child"): 
 
 People's Theatre, New York City, May 7, 1888. 
 "Margaret Fleming": Lynn Theatre, Lynn, Mass., July 4, 1890. 
 
 Revived, Chicago, 111., Jan. 29, 1907. 
 "Shore Acres" (formerly called "The Hawthornes"): McVicker's 
 
 Theatre, Chicago, 111., May 23, 1892. 
 "Griffith Davenport": Lafayette Square Theatre, Washington, 
 
 D. C, Jan. 16, 1899. 
 "Sag Harbor": Park Theatre, Boston, Mass., Oct. 23, 1899. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DAVID BELASCO AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 
 SWITCHBOARD 
 
 The story is told of an artist who, in the cramped quarters 
 of his room, was wont to do the most exquisite pictures, 
 marked by finesse and dehcacy; but no sooner had he ac- 
 cumulated enough to afford a larger studio than the deft- 
 ness of his art deserted him. It is one of the unexplainable 
 points about all professions that there is a limit to expression; 
 that there is a line where effect has its greatest scope, beyond 
 which the appeal goes to waste. The story points a dramatic 
 moral. For Dion Boucicault, in the course of his vast ex- 
 perience as playwright, actor and manager, discovered that 
 beyond a certain number, it was difficult to fuse the minds 
 of an audience; to grip their attention and to hold it. 
 
 Such is the snag against which the stockholders of the New 
 Theatre in New York first struck. They wished to build an 
 art playhouse of certain proportions, with a stage far exceed- 
 ing in amplitude the proscenium width of any ordinary 
 theatre, and suitable for light opera, spectacular and draw- 
 ing-room drama. This is well-nigh impossible; for, to illus- 
 trate the point in exaggeration, it would be artistic suicide 
 to spread the boxed-in delicacy of Pinero's "Trelawny of 
 the ' Wells ' " over an area of the Hippodrome stage. 
 
 And so, the art of the drama is the art of all arts, where 
 proportion, perspective and color accumulate for a given 
 effect. No one has studied this fact to greater purpose than 
 
112 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 David Belasco, in whom the instinct of the painter before his 
 canvas is the dominant characteristic, — an instinct which 
 must assuredly prompt the mechanism of any art theatre we 
 may ever hope to have. When the story of scenic reahsm is 
 told, he will occupy a distinctive position. Such a survey 
 will narrate how Mrs. John Drew, once playing in "London 
 Assurance," created a sensation by having a real carpet and 
 mirror among the properties for one act. Not only in this, but 
 in all of Boucicault's productions, some marvel of stage 
 mechanism indicated to what extent the scenic art could be 
 carried; and David Belasco has continued the tradition. 
 
 In our invariable effort to estimate a man, even though 
 what he next does may upset our theories, there are two 
 phases to be considered, one of which includes the other. 
 Our view depends primarily on what he has done; it is tem- 
 pered by the direct influence which has been brought to 
 bear upon him by others. No matter what claims to origin- 
 ality an artist may have, no matter how strong the impress 
 of his personality, those subtle workings of environment and 
 of unconscious imitation are perforce obliged to develop 
 within the man a certain inclination, a certain leaning, which 
 will shape his angle of vision. To say that Mr. Belasco was 
 for a time private secretary to Boucicault; to understand 
 that he acknowledges the influence upon him of such pieces 
 as "The Robbers," "Pizarro," and "Fazio" ; to follow the 
 status of the theater when he first reached New York in 1882 
 — a status measured by the success of such French melo- 
 dramas as "The Two Orphans," "The Celebrated Case," 
 and "Rose Michel" — these factors will, if examined in 
 extenso, explain something about Mr. Belasco*s impetus as a 
 playwright. 
 
 The man behind his ascetic dress is a combination of con- 
 flicting elements. It is easy to say this of anyone; but in 
 the case of Mr, Belasco, facts and conditions make it evident. 
 
Photo, by The Misses Selby 
 
 David Belasco 
 
DAVID BELASCO 113 
 
 His manner betrays the artistic temperament; his steady 
 look has two quahties, one which explains how he reaches 
 the estimate of an actor's limitations, and the other in what 
 manner he has withstood the enmity of the Theatrical Trust. 
 It is not always essential for a dramatist to penetrate deeply 
 into life, but one cannot deny that Mr. Belasco's glance has 
 taken the details in thoroughly. He has had the experience 
 which should come to all writers of plays ; he has been thrown 
 against the strong contrasts of living which are usually to 
 be found in a mining camp; he has lurked in the highways 
 and byways of existence, unconsciously gathering those ele- 
 mental stuffs which are the essential ingredients in all pas- 
 sion. These he has in most cases toned down, but the brutal 
 elements in "Du Barry" and in "Adrea" indicate to what 
 uses experience of this kind is brought. 
 
 There is the ascetic streak in David Belasco, colored by a 
 pronounced spiritual and contrasting sentimental verve; 
 there is the tinge of morbidity which is always attendant 
 upon a clinical analysis of psychological phenomena. None 
 but Mr. Belasco himself can realize the satisfaction he gained 
 many years ago through watching the heart of a woman as 
 it lay upon a plate before him. Yet such was the actual 
 occurrence, all the while his imagination playing havoc with 
 the physical object. In like manner has the manager studied 
 the effects of poisons upon the body, reasoning out the 
 physical contortions as they differed under varying condi- 
 tions. This preparation for the drama is not essential to 
 all playwrights; it suited Mr. Belasco's temperament that 
 he seek impressions in this manner. 
 
 Yet side by side with this curiosity that digs into the 
 physical causes and effects, there is the other phase character- 
 istic of the ascetic nature — the love of solitude. For five 
 years, during the formative period of his life, Mr. Belasco 
 was under the guidance of the priesthood at Vancouver. 
 
114 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 The eight-year-old boy was impressionable, and Father 
 McGuire, if he could not educate his tastes away from the 
 stage, at least set a mark of ecclesiasticism upon his dress, 
 to which he has always adhered. In contrast with the little 
 fellow, asleep in his cheerless cell of the monastery, may be 
 set the picture of the nervous playwright as he is to-day, 
 closeted in his secret studio with his books and curios, totally 
 alone in a roaring city, since none know where that workshop 
 may be, except a few of his essential staff. 
 
 Here it is that he plans in secret, the slightest suggestions 
 bringing meaning to him; he is a lover of the twilight; in 
 the thunder and the lightning are hidden possible electrical 
 impressions. His is the quick grasp of the picturesque, the 
 striking, the impressionable. In every respect does he 
 practice the technique of the painter before his canvas. 
 
 Mr. Belasco is the second present-day dramatist of note 
 to draw upon Iberian traits, for his family, like the Pineros, 
 were of ancient Portuguese extraction, and were forced to 
 flee to England before the wrath of the Moors. But, while 
 the Pineros remained as British subjects, the Belascos of 
 David's immediate stock proceeded still further to Victoria 
 (in Vancouver), where the father of the present playwright 
 became rich and was elected Mayor, then became poor again 
 and made another move to San Francisco, drawn there by 
 optimistic accounts which marked the gold fever of 1849.^ 
 
 In that city it was that the present holder of the name was 
 born on July 25, 1859. There is little to record of these 
 early days. It must have been before his departure to Van- 
 couver with Father McGuire that he assumed juvenile roles 
 in "Pizarro" with Charles Kean; in "Metamora" with 
 Edwin Forrest; in "East Lynne" v\dth Julia Dean. Before 
 then, also, he received some slight school training, as well as 
 
 1 In crossing the Isthmus of Panama, his mother gained distinc- 
 tion as the first woman traveler to do so. 
 
DAVID BELASCO 115 
 
 gained some reputation as a reciter of a piece called "The 
 Madman. " 
 
 When he returned from his priest friends, he was thirteen 
 and not yet quite through his education, for he was placed 
 at Lincoln College, from which he was graduated in 1875. 
 When he was scarcely fourteen, he could boast authorship 
 of "Jim Black; or. The Regulator's Revenge." All through 
 these years forces in him and around him were pointing to- 
 ward the stage. It does not take much to fan a liking into 
 a passion, and it is recorded how, having once gone to see 
 " Hamlet, " the boy had rushed home to the garret and there 
 played through the drama, even essaying, at this early age, 
 to rewrite the dialogue from memory! 
 
 Then followed the months of a struggling actor. He 
 began by supporting Mary Welles in "The Lion of Nu- 
 bia, " and soon, throwing his whole future into the dramatic 
 scales, Mr. Belasco experienced the vicissitudes of the ex- 
 hibitor of Egyptian mysteries, of the melodramatic "super," 
 even for a while playing Hamlet and Richard III himself 
 in the mountain towns and backwoods settlements of the 
 West. He was fortunate, during this period, in being brought 
 into direct contact with the golden era of American acting. 
 Edwin Booth, John McCullough, E. A. Sothern, William 
 Florence, Edwin Adams and Adelaide Nielson were the 
 stars in the San Francisco of those days. He even joined 
 Sothern 's "Dundreary" company, appearing as the valet. 
 
 Thereafter began the training of David Belasco as assis- 
 tant stage manager of a theatre in Virginia City, where the 
 stock company was prepared for any emergency, from farce 
 to tragedy, and where Belasco was supposed, much as Ibsen 
 had been expected at Bergen, to fit dramas for production. 
 He did more than this, since he was required to act as well as 
 to manage. While serving in this capacity, Dion Boucicault 
 and his company arrived to fill an engagement. The Irish 
 
116 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 wizard, in the writing of plays, could juggle with three plots 
 at a time; he had, with Laura Keene, produced a play within 
 an abnormally short period by rehearsing one act while in 
 the midst of writing another. He was alert to activity of 
 all kinds, and he found energy to his liking in the assistant 
 stage manager. 
 
 When he left Virginia City, Boucicault carried Belasco 
 with him as private secretary, and to his young associate 
 "Led Astray *' was dictated, besides the scenes for many 
 other productions. It is not likely that the effectiveness 
 which marked the Boucicault drama would escape the future 
 wizard of American stage-craft. ' " Arrah-na-Pogue," when 
 it reached San Francisco, became the one strong outside 
 influence to affect the theatrical conditions on the Pacific 
 slope. The secretary might have gone to New York soon 
 after had his mother not intervened; and it was just as 
 well, since the experience which he was now to gain as man- 
 ager and stock dramatist of the Baldwin Theatre matured 
 his managerial powers and at the same time brought him 
 into association with James A. Heme, who, for a while, was 
 at the same theatre. The play-goer of the present gener- 
 ation needs must weigh the value of such repertoires as old- 
 time actors used to carry — dramas that called for the 
 varying shades of classic comedies, and the historical scope 
 of different styled tragedies. But though there was a con- 
 ventional way of regulating all stock companies, Belasco, 
 even at that early date, began to introduce original methods, 
 and Charles Thorne, Frank Mayo and Edwin Adams — 
 all men of longer experience — soon came to regard his ad- 
 vice as authoritative. 
 
 Belasco was the youngest manager along the Pacific slope. 
 The theatre was run on a somewhat crude, though very 
 artistic, scale. Audiences of all classes had to be catered 
 to, and a motley, picturesque crowd gathered together on 
 
/ 
 
 
 '**^^. 
 
 :'J:-^ ■''^Vi,i^'^- 
 
 ,4"f^^ 
 
 A. M. Palmer 
 
 Phoio. by Sarony 
 
DAVID BELASCO 117 
 
 Saturdays — the melodrama evenings — to thrill over " The 
 Idiot of the Mountains " and "The Robber of the Pyrenees/' 
 Thus the years passed at the Baldwin Theatre, the Grand 
 Opera House and the Metropohtan. When finally Belasco 
 decided, in 1882, to go to New York, his confidence in him- 
 self was backed by an enviable experience. No schooling 
 is better for a playwright than just this intimate contact 
 which Mr. Belasco had had with the hundreds of plays that 
 came under his supervision. Already his hand had been 
 turned to dramatizations, adaptations and even original 
 work. 
 
 But when the Mallorys engaged him as stage director 
 and stock dramatist of the Madison Square Theatre, they 
 probably placed more store by his general usefulness as a 
 producer, as a manipulator of other people's crude material, 
 than as an author of any formidable proportions. 
 
 New York was then going through its final decade of 
 old-time managerial policies; the Theatrical Trust was still 
 to come; the American playwright, in the face of foreign 
 importations, was finding it difficult to gain recognition; 
 Mr. Howard was battling hard and receiving rough handhng 
 by the critics for his " Saratoga." A. M. Palmer was meet- 
 ing success with French melodramas; Wallack, atune to 
 English melodrama, was soon listening to Belasco's tempting 
 offer of "La Belle Russe''; Daly, at the most disastrous 
 period of his career, was tottering through an opera craze. 
 The latter manager had begun with marked success; such 
 pieces as "Under the Gas Light," "Article 47" (for Clara 
 Morris) and "Pique" (for Fanny Davenport) had obtained 
 instant favor. He had been drawing from France, when he 
 adapted "Frou-Frou" for Agnes Ethel, and he had turned 
 to the German of Mosenthal for " Leah, the Forsaken." It 
 was after this that he found a mine in the German farce. 
 
 In the midst of all this conglomerate emotional material, 
 
118 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Mr. Belasco found the Madison Square Theatre devoted 
 to the quiet domestic play, so quiet that it had drawn down 
 upon it the derisive title of "milk and water" drama. Natu- 
 rally the distorted methods of acting would not suit this 
 style of play. Those were the days of over-emphasis, big 
 periods, measured intervals, and rounded gesture. Mr. 
 Belasco proceeded to sacrifice all of this bombast, much to 
 the surprise and doubt of his co-workers. The comedian 
 no longer was allowed to wait for a laugh; it had either to 
 come through the pure unctiousness of the character-acting, 
 or not at all. Such a regime as the young manager instituted 
 soon won the confidence of everyone. 
 
 The little playhouse on Twenty-fourth Street was in the 
 hey-day of its existence; A. M. Palmer soon became inter- 
 ested in its success; the stock company which bore its name 
 was winning public favor; a school of acting was to involve 
 the labors of Henry C. De Mille and Boucicault, who turned 
 to it, broken in health and sorely disturbed in mind. Mr. 
 De Mille was play-reader for the theatre, which meant, for 
 example, that in three months he examined two hundred 
 manuscripts submitted by would-be American playwrights! 
 
 When, however, a drama was accepted, it was soon turned 
 over to Mr. Belasco for final shaping. This is what happened 
 to Mr. Howard's "The Young Mrs. Winthrop"; suggested 
 changes were made on all sides, and the final re-casting was 
 accomplished with Belasco's assistance. The result was 
 that by the production Mr. Howard gained warm com- 
 mendation from the press, and Mr. Belasco immediately 
 found himself in possession of considerable prestige. 
 
 What followed, up to the time that the latter joined forces 
 with Daniel Frohman at the Lyceum, in 1885,^ constitutes the 
 history of the New York theatre rather than the develop- 
 
 1 See "Memories of a Manager." Daniel Frohman. 1911. 
 
DAVID BELASCO 119 
 
 ment of the American dramatist. It is only necessary to 
 say that under such conditions, and together with Mr. 
 Belasco's temperament, there grew into dominant propor- 
 tions a managerial grasp, an analytical keenness for large 
 effect, a marvelous readiness to assimilate according to his 
 needs, an instinctive and unerring eye for the romantic. 
 
 Up to this time little of his actual stage writing had brought 
 him any unusual distinction. Between his arrival in the 
 East and his collaborating with De Mille, "La Belle Russe'* 
 (Wallack's, 1882), " The Stranglers of Paris" (1883), "Hearts 
 of Oak" (with Mr. Heme) (1884) f/ and "May Blossom" 
 (1884)2 had met with success. But there were also to his 
 credit titles which are not even familiar in name to the 
 present generation of threatre-goers. In this category are 
 included "Valerie," "Miss Helyett," "Pawn Ticket 210,"t 
 "The Moonlight Marriage," "The Doll Master," "A Christ- 
 mas Night," " Within an Inch of His Life," " The Lone Pine," 
 "American Born," "Not Guilty," "The Haunted House," 
 "Cherry and Fair Star," "Sylvia's Loves," "Paul Arniff," 
 "The Curse of Cain," "The Millionaire's Daughter," "The 
 Ace of Spades" and "The Roll of the Drum." One is not 
 far wrong in inferring that, however effective these may have 
 been, there was more melodramatic situation in them than 
 definite intent, nor did they have sufficient distinctiveness 
 in themselves to survive the immediate atmosphere and 
 demand which encouraged them. Had it not been that Mr. 
 Belasco's art instinct as a constructive manager was upper- 
 most at the time, he might have been contributing at this 
 moment to the broad melodrama which thrives on the 
 morbid, however it may seek to glorify virtue. But so 
 
 * Plays marked thus (f) indicate collaboration. 
 
 2 This is the only one of Mr. Belasco's plays that has so far been 
 published. It is included in the French series. "The Grand Army 
 Man" has been "novelized" by Harvey J. O'Higgins. 
 
120 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 characteristic did this art side become, that one cannot 
 separate the manager from the author. 
 
 By the deftness of stage manipulation which had made 
 him so sought after that the Mallorys on occasions were 
 forced to lend him to others, pubHc attention was now cen- 
 tred upon the Lyceum. The association of Mr. De Mille 
 with Mr. Behisco resulted in four plays, all marked with certain 
 conventions that characterize Mr. Howard at his best — 
 stock situations that balance three sets of opposite characters : 
 the ingenue roles, the romantic hero and heroine, and the 
 middle-aged couple upon whom comedy, bordering nigh 
 on to farce, is unerringly practiced. We see this in "The 
 Charity Ball" (1889), as well as in "Men and Women" 
 (1890). Then there was "The Wife," a drama w^hich in 
 1887 was brought into the courts, where an unsuccessful 
 suit was tried, with Frances Aymar Mathews as the plaintiff. 
 But the greatest coup which the two made together was the 
 preparation of a role in "Lord Chumley" (1888), for E. H. 
 Sothern, which marked the son with some of the excellent 
 comedy capabilities belonging to his father, whose "Lord 
 Dundreary" was undoubtedly the source of inspiration. 
 It must be said that the collaborators succeeded in develop- 
 ing a certain human sympathy for the fop w^hich was not 
 unlike the loveableness so pronounced in the earlier role} 
 
 Between 1890 and 1895, which last date marks the inception 
 of the Theatrical Syndicate, perhaps one might say until 
 after "Zaza" (1899) and "Naughty Anthony" (1900), 
 which ended his association with any members of the organ- 
 ized managerial system, Mr. Belasco must be regarded only 
 as a successful stage manager and a skilful playwright and 
 adapter. "The Girl I Left Behind Me" (1893), written 
 
 * In 1889, Mr. Belasco and Mr, Franklin Sargent produced the 
 "Electra" of Sophocles; while on the Pacific Coast Mr. Belasco 
 mounted a version of the Passion Play. 
 
DAVID BELASCO 121 
 
 in conjunction with Franklyn Fyles, was one of the initial 
 successes of the Empire Theatre; "The Heart of Maryland" 
 (1895) was one of the first of his dramas stamped by a large 
 piece of stage technique, such as the swinging bell, with the 
 heroine holding to the clapper; "Zaza" (1899)^ indicates 
 the deftness with which his translation quite eclipsed the 
 real author of the French original, and his training of Mrs. 
 Carter in the title role exemplifies the wonderful illumina- 
 tive power with which he can, in his instruction, carry an 
 actress to the heart of a character and bring out, as a 
 photographer does on a negative, those fine lines which are 
 never evident in the first moments. From this time on, 
 however, his progress has been marked by two dominant 
 notes; he has fought against odds, and has, by his atti- 
 tude, brought public attention to bear upon both sides of 
 the Trust problem; he has, likewise, incited public curiosity 
 through the lavishness of his stagecraft, so thoroughly tak- 
 ing hold of popular appeal as well-nigh to hypnotize by 
 what is peculiarly, yet legitimately, termed "the Belasco 
 atmosphere." 
 
 There are always two sides to a given question, and it 
 is never wise to discuss one without laying as much emphasis 
 upon the other. Suffice it to say at the present moment, 
 whatever move Mr. Belasco has made against the Trust has 
 been planned quite as much in the cause of independent 
 art as to further his personal interests. He has never once 
 gainsaid the advantage of systematizing theatrical finance 
 so as to bring the money question down to a thorough bank- 
 ing basis; but he has questioned the ethical side of the book- 
 ing problem. This places in control of a few hands the 
 portioning of time engagements along theatrical circuits 
 
 1 Other plays during this time were "The Senator's Wife" (1892), 
 and "The Younger Son" (1893). 
 
122 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 and involves the playhouses stretched, chain-like, across the 
 continent. 
 
 It is a matter of stage history how certain actors made 
 bold to stand against the dictatorship of the Trust, and 
 how, one by one, they succumbed.^ Not so Mr. Belasco, 
 and because, in his theatre he was determined to practice 
 his own policy, and not be dictated to, he soon realized 
 that along that chain of theatres he was irretrievably de- 
 barred; which meant that he must either play in halls or 
 be kept out of certain towns. This necessitated his planning 
 for his own theatres, in New York, in Washington, in 
 Philadelphia, and in Boston. One by one the difficulties 
 constituting his exile are being overcome. But to add to 
 the condition of theatrical monopoly, Mr. Belasco has had, 
 likewise, to face a personal antagonism, which is hardly a 
 matter for theatre discussion, however much it may have 
 been enlarged because of Mr. Belasco's theatre success. 
 
 Since the opening of his Belasco playhouse in New York, 
 the manager has presented a long list of remarkable successes 
 from the standpoint of scenic artistry and drawing qualities. 
 He has engaged the efforts of John Luther Long, of Charles 
 Klein, of Richard Walton TuUy, and of the Misses Phelps 
 and Short as collaborators; and under his undoubted genius 
 as a painstaking instructor there have come to the fore such 
 names as Mrs. Carter, Miss Bates, Mr. Warfield, Mr. Frank 
 Keenan, Miss Starr, Miss Walker and Miss O'Neil. Further- 
 more, as material for his success, he has depended upon 
 "Madame Butterfly "t (1900 — Long), " Du Barry'' (1900), 
 "The Darling of the Gods"t (1902 — Long), "Sweet Kitty 
 
 1 For a few articles on the S5nidicate, see: International, 1 : 99-122, 
 Jan., 1900, Norman Hapgood; Fortn. Rev., 79:1010-1016, June, 1903, 
 Charles Hawtrey; Leslie's Monthly, Oct., 1904,581-592; Nov., 1904, 
 31-42; Dec, 1904, 202-210; Jan., 1905, 331-334; Cosmopolitan, 38: 
 193-201, Dec, 1904. 
 
DAVID BELASCO 123 
 
 Bellairs" (1903 — dramatization), " Adrea"t (1905 — 
 Long), "The Girl of the Golden West" (1905) ,i "The Rose of 
 the Rancho'^t (1906 — Tully), "The Grand Army Man" f 
 (1907 — Phelps — Short). To this list may be added his 
 assistance as manager in the success of "The Auctioneer" 
 and "The Music Master," by Charles Klein, and of "The 
 Warrens of Virginia," by William C. De Mille, the son of his 
 old collaborator.^ 
 
 What are the elements that mark Mr. Belasco, or it would 
 be more in order to say on what special elements does Mr. 
 Belasco place the stamp of his own temperament and genius? 
 I have been fortunate in having before me the stage copies 
 of his important dramas, and I cannot but marvel at the 
 strokes which are made by his unerring eye, unerring in the 
 sense that his strokes seem always to fulfil the special re- 
 quirement which he at the moment needs. The intricate 
 movement in the first act of "Zaza," the filmy threads of 
 broken dialogue, the minute directions of the dressing-room 
 scene, where, not for a moment, even in the reading, is the 
 imagination left in doubt as to the details of business — here 
 is the painter in his most impressionistic manner, flinging 
 splashes of humanity against a canvas, splashes which draw 
 together the moment they are brought in continuous and 
 active relation one with the other. 
 
 "The Darling of the Gods," over-weighty as it is in its 
 mounting, would be difficult to follow in the manuscript, 
 were Mr. Belasco 's infinite care of small matters not con- 
 
 1 Made into an opera by Puccini, and sung at the Metropolitan 
 Opera House during the season of 1910-11. 
 
 2 Among Mr. Belasco 's recent successes may be mentioned "The 
 Lily" (1910) by himself, and "The Concert," adapted from the Ger- 
 man by Leo Ditrichstein. Walter's "The Easiest Way" (1909) created 
 great discussion in New York, but was debarred, by act of the 
 Mayor, from Boston. During the Spring of 1911, he presented 
 William De Mille's "The Woman." 
 
124 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 scientiously set down. Even so, the demand this play makes 
 on the imagination, in addition to the amount of imagi- 
 nation it shows in itself, is indication of the visual insight 
 which he and his collaborator have brought to bear. 
 
 I do not contend that light plots, and property plots, and 
 calcium plots entitle a man to the distinction of playwright, 
 but the power to conjure up the effective contrasts of high 
 light and shadow is as much to Mr. Belasco's credit as it 
 is to the artist who paints upon a large canvas. The stage 
 settings, sometimes overrich in detail, are nevertheless 
 almost always unfailing in their atmospheric effects. The 
 courtesan, Du Barry ^ is given a setting which balances the 
 savage abandon of her nature with the licentious terrorism 
 of the period. "Adrea," barbaric throughout, does not, fail 
 to create a disgust which is too strong to be counteracted 
 by the moment of sacrifice in the end. These are not char- 
 acteristics which are new to Mr. Belasco; they were evi- 
 dent in him long before, even though they were not fully 
 developed. Some may think that Sardou was the influence 
 behind this, but the young dramatist had written " La Belle 
 Russe" before Fanny Davenport began with "Fedora" 
 in a list which ended with " Gismonda." It was simply the 
 innate genius of the stage manager who may not write for 
 literature, but who, while he remains active, is a constant 
 source of pleasure. 
 
 There is nothing so disillusionizing as an empty theatre 
 in daylight; the gaping orchestra chairs show the absence 
 of a responsive crowd; the space from pit to dome, from 
 centre stage to family circle, is like an empty shell waiting 
 for sound and light. But if you possess even the slightest 
 sense of the theatre, the scenery with its daub of paint, the 
 switchboard with its banks of levers, the stage hands in their 
 shirtsleeves, will represent the elements of a great art, whose 
 spirit gilds the mechanics of the play. 
 
DAVID BELASCO 125 
 
 Take for granted that the scene is naught but a house of 
 cards, that the back-drop on close view is no more nor less 
 than a splash of color, — behind it all is the instinct that 
 creates perspective from the flat. The mechanics of the 
 stage have been brought to such perfection that their misuse 
 instantly reveals the lack of the artist. 
 
 The stage is an organism, a whole of many parts; the 
 idea set in dialogue and action must be clothed in speech, 
 light, and scene. This is the supreme work of the stage 
 manager, — to draw these things together in their truest 
 relationship. 
 
 One has a right to speak of the psychology of the switch- 
 board, to humanize the mechanics of the theatre. The elec- 
 trician holds nature in his hands; he has thought out the 
 elements of a prairie sun, and he measures its intensity by 
 the number of switches in use. At rehearsals he has diffused 
 the scene with many moonlights, until the Italian glamour 
 appealed to his feeling. The stage has changed since the 
 time Mary Anderson's Juliet faced the headlight of a loco- 
 motive, held aloft by a negro boy as the inconstant moon. 
 Psychology is essentially a fluid state, and the progress of 
 electricity has made it possible for stage lighting to be fluid, 
 to be subject to imperceptible shades, to absorb the individ- 
 ual rays in a general suffusion. 
 
 Not one of our present-day managers has so profited by the 
 response of the electric switchboard to human psychology 
 as Mr. Belasco; in his hands it is the very essence of atmos- 
 phere, the very indicator of the scene's tone. Whether it 
 be the enervating blaze of sunlight in the opening act of 
 "The Rose of the Rancho," or the cold gray dawn after the 
 night's anguish in "Madame Butterfly," the result repre- 
 sents no mechanical accident. Once, not so long ago, effect 
 used to be entirely artificial; the villain's entrance was 
 heralded by dark, restless music from a few violins, and by the 
 
126 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 roll of a kettledrum. But to-day, Mr. Belasco has driven 
 incidental sentimentality from the orchestra by the depen- 
 dence upon the switchboard. 
 
 What do we mean by the psychology of stage lighting? 
 Simply that every emotional effect of large import results 
 in a corresponding direction being given to the electrician. 
 To take an external example, suppose the stage in semi- 
 darkness; a character enters with a lighted candle. One 
 naturally expects an increase in light, but the intensity must 
 move across the stage with the movement of the candle. 
 It is here that the electrician, from his platform, plays upon 
 his switchboard. By a system of interlocking, and of dim- 
 ming the flow of current, he can send across the "foots" a 
 flare of lights to follow the candle flame; one bulb is made to 
 glow as the other fades. 
 
 Such is the ease of gaining an elementary effect, but the 
 principle is the same, however complicated the requirement. 
 In his studio, Mr. Belasco first imagines his canvas; he then 
 places his "light plots" in the hands of his electrician for 
 fulfilment. At rehearsal he adds to, modifies, rejects, fus- 
 ing the whole as a painter does with his brush. His stage 
 directions at first become mere skeleton notes of transitory 
 feeling. His assistant stands near, pencil in hand, watching 
 the restless move of the manager, searching among the lights 
 for what he wants. The switchboard is taxed to its utter- 
 most, mixing color to accord with a certain quality of shadow 
 in Mr. Belasco *s mind. 
 
 If a drama is big, if an actor's art is expressive, a story 
 may often be ably suggested by pantomime; its emotional 
 color, range, and variation in the same way may be sketched 
 in light. Having rehearsed his company beyond the " letter 
 perfect" point, Mr. Belasco assembles them for light effects. 
 His experiments are as much with you as on you. Not 
 only must the actors harmonize among themselves, but also 
 
DAVID BELASCO 127 
 
 with the lights. To their own emotional interpretation of a 
 role, they must add the atmospheric effect of the stage light. 
 For six minutes the curtain was up before a word was spoken 
 in "The Rose of the Rancho." It was a somnolent scene; 
 those who saw it felt the drowsy vapor of the glow, the still 
 air, and the enervating heat. Let us discount the state- 
 ment of the press- agent that " so realistic was the scene, it 
 made the stage carpenters drowsy," and be satisfied with 
 the plausible fact that the imagination of the actor caused 
 the switchboard to react upon himself. 
 
 Undoubtedly, a stage manager should make his people 
 feel the lights; if the scene is cold, the actor should find it 
 easy to shiver within the bleak, steely rays devoid of all 
 warm color. In this way imitation approaches reality; 
 the actor responds by absorbing every element, condition, or 
 circumstance, in order to make his body warm or cold, as 
 the case may be. \ 
 
 Every electrician is in possession of his cue, knows the 
 story of the play, and is made to calculate the emotional 
 requirements in terms of his switchboard. He is no machine, 
 no mere feeder of the stage with light. The human tempo 
 of the situation pulses in his veins; he lowers or raises his 
 levers until every blemish is removed. There must be no 
 blotch, no streaks, for the lights should glide; sharp edges 
 should be made to blend. 
 
 In that rehearsal for lights, the manager must consider 
 the balance of white surface and shadow. A glint is thrown 
 on a ribbon, a bit of lace, a bare arm or neck; this must be 
 balanced by the absence of light somewhere else. The 
 switchboard must have a tempo regulated to accord with the 
 beat of emotion. Not only that, but the light is guided by 
 the color of a costume, toned to contrast with other dresses 
 possibly; even the hair limits the intensity of light, and if 
 the features of an actor are strong, a strong current upon the 
 
128 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 face would only serve to reveal a "war map" of lines. A 
 white light brings disillusionment in its path. 
 
 Rehearsal is a matter of constant shifting* a thousand and 
 one directions are given which never find their way on the 
 prompter's script of the play. "I think I'll make that so 
 and so," says the Stage Manager, and the Carpenter looks 
 askance at the Electrician, while the Scene Painter goes 
 back to his pots and brushes, to try again some perspective 
 cliff or shore. "I not only want a moon, but a Japanese 
 moon," cried Mr. Belasco during a rehearsal of "The Darling 
 of the Gods.'' 
 
 In the matter of the switchboard, Mr. Belasco stands in 
 a new light. He is not the conventional stage manager; he 
 is a lover of nature, having felt the close of day on the plains, 
 and seen the first streak of dawn in Italy. He has been an 
 investigator of all phases of the physical as well as of the 
 emotional. He is not merely satisfied with reaching the eye, 
 but he must strike the heart; his lights are always acces- 
 sories; they are made to reinforce or to counteract; they 
 must serve a purpose, otherwise be discarded. At times he 
 places too much dependence upon such effect; we feel it in 
 the way he "plays up" a brunette or blonde, working his 
 lights to show her to the best advantage. But in the ma- 
 jority of cases, his results are artistic rather than theatrical. 
 
 From one of the iron bridges in the flies, flung far above the 
 proscenium arch on the side, the stage presents to view every 
 point of vantage. The five sets of border lights, consisting of 
 two hundred and seventy lamps as an average, the three banks of 
 bulbs in the" foots," ^ the fight strips ready to be placed in any 
 wing, the baby lenses to counteract any false reflection of the 
 "foots" when shadow is thrown on the face at inopportune 
 moments, the large lenses on the bridges, the lamps centred 
 
 1 Mr. Belasco is now experimenting to do away with the " foots." 
 
DAVID BELASCO 129 
 
 on particular stage accessories, the stereopticon for cloud 
 effects during a storm or sun or moonlight, — with these the 
 electrician, at the final rehearsal, has "fixed" his diagram, 
 which he has by him for the first few regular performances. 
 
 Amber, blue, red, and white are the general colors in use 
 on the stage, besides the direct flow of lime-light. But not 
 always will the standard color do ; then the electrician mixes 
 his own stain and dips the incandescent bulb therein. The 
 hard problem for him to consider is not how to reach the 
 proper light out of darkness; it were easy thus to obtain a 
 realistic sun. But the difficult matter is to have the sun come 
 after the appearance of a gray dawn; in other words, to ob- 
 tain light effects out of light. 
 
 The psychology of the switchboard is largely the problem 
 of counteracting shadows, of bringing emotion into high 
 light. That is why the old idea that tragedy must be given 
 the tragic tone is an exploded theory, since contrast, rather 
 than agreement, is the electrician's asset. Death lurks in 
 the sunlight as well as in the shadow. Was it not in Forbes 
 Robertson's "Hamlet" that Ophelia came broken-minded 
 into an orchard pink with the touch of Spring? 
 
 There is not an inch of surface on the stage that cannot 
 be subjected to a flood of light which may be softened or 
 intensified slowly by means of simplicity dimmers, — devices 
 even more responsive than the cock of a gas jet. So impor- 
 tant a matter is the switchboard, that a portable one, in no 
 way as extensive as the stationary one, is carried on the road 
 as an important part of the play's emotional effect. 
 
 In "The Rose of the Rancho," during the course of the 
 first scene, with the sun beating down on the Mission garden, 
 with the Padre asleep on his vine-covered porch, the elec- 
 trician is busy at the switch. Some lenses are focussed for 
 light, others for shadow, amber is thrown upon the gate, 
 straw medium paints the orange tree. A rose bush must 
 
130 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 have a special ray upon it, while the arbor, and certain roses, 
 must catch the glint of sunlight. One lens strikes the foun- 
 tain, centred on the stage, coloring the stone seat upon which 
 Juanita flirts with Kearney. All the while the baby lens 
 is kept busy spotting the chief actors on the stage. 
 
 The significant part of psychology as applied to stage 
 lighting is that in the highest perfection of its handling it 
 is never fixed, particularly in plays dependent upon special 
 atmosphere. If the sunlight strikes the broad front of the 
 Mission steeple at the top, the same intensity hardly suffices 
 to flood the entire building. As the play progresses, the day 
 progresses, and the lights vary; these changes occur in 
 accordance with the electrician's cues. The siesta hoiu* of 
 this first act approaches the eventide, and Juanita falls deeper 
 in love with the "Gringo," Kearney, as the shadows grow 
 more and more. Thus the "light plot" reads: 
 
 "At cue: 'Meet me at my posada,' change lenses Nos. 
 7, 5, 3 on lower bridge to light amber, also lens on upper 
 bridge R., and lenses on stage R. 3E.; also lens back stage 
 on bridge L., and the four open boxes in 3. Put on 1st border 
 blue to f and 2d, 3d, and 4th borders red to full; take down 
 whites to J. " 
 
 This shorthand notation is indicative of mechanical re- 
 sponse; levers are handled like the shift-key of a typewriter, 
 banks of lights are interlocked, so as to respond to one force 
 at the same time. Then comes Kearney's caressing words: 
 "Let me hold your little brown hand in mine." Many 
 the lovers who have strayed in a garden of roses during the 
 gathering twilight which creeps upon them! But here on 
 the stage there must be a "change of all lenses on bridges 
 and open boxes to red, except the two on bridge left, which go 
 to salmon; take down foots to |, and amber borders to J; 
 also dim the tubular lamps on window and arbor R. " 
 
 All the time the scene grows darker; the lamp on the rose 
 
DAVID BELASCO 131 
 
 bush is blinded, the fountain is cast in shadow, the belfry is 
 made misty, while the blues begin to mingle with the reds 
 for evening. 
 
 Finally, there is uttered Juanita's cry of love as Kearney 
 leaves her, determined on saving her property from the land- 
 grabbers, looting California. Hence, at cue, "Oh, Gringo, 
 why did you come?" 
 
 "Slowly pass amber color over baby lens in 1 R. (This 
 lamp is on Juanita at the time; the color is just passed over 
 the lamp and taken off again while the line is spoken.) At 
 same cue, take off both lamps in flies, L. 1 E. This light 
 stands till end of act." 
 
 Here one has suggested only a fractional part of the me- 
 chanics behind the stage — the psychology of the switchboard, 
 which is only effective when employed with reticence, 
 with reason, with intelligent understanding, with feeling. 
 There is the cartoon use of light as seen in the spotter lime- 
 streak following the clown in the circus; there is the melo- 
 dramatic use of light, noted in the splotch of green thrown 
 upon the face of Mansfield while he changed from Jekyll to 
 Hyde. But the artist at the switchboard is a believer in 
 the minor notes as the best notes, and, as regards Mr. Bel- 
 asco's management, it might be truly claimed, he does not 
 act without reason. He has often said he does not believe 
 in dragging in sound simply for the sake of sound; a wise 
 principle to uphold, even if it is not always followed. 
 
 "The Rose of the Rancho" serves our purpose for illus- 
 trating the psychology of the switchboard, because its 
 atmosphere involves constantly shifting light; any one of 
 Mr. Belasco's plays largely depends upon accessory of this 
 character, and upon the mechanics demanding constant 
 attention. In the third act of this California romance, we 
 are given a dark stage creeping to full light: reds and blues 
 which succumb to early dawn ambers. The scene is on the 
 
132 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 roof, Kearney waiting for the day. From the main switch 
 the electrician is working his "dimmers" slowly; some 
 clusters of blue — for instance — must take a generous ten 
 minutes to gain full intensity. Here and there on the stage 
 "boards," at places known as pockets, which are merely 
 indicated spots where light plugs may be inserted, a con- 
 necting link is to be had between a lamp and the main cur- 
 rent. The electrician can only manage the general circuit 
 of "foots" and "borders" and house lights; he has assist- 
 ants who are drilled by him to work the separate lanterns 
 from the wings and the bridges. Every movement of the 
 persons on that supposed roof is attended by a correspond- 
 ing balance of incandescence. 
 
 The ordinary dress-suit, drawing-room comedy has a 
 fixed light which does not concern itself greatly with the 
 switchboard. But whenever the latter is used, when the 
 light values are supposed to move for the sake of theatrical 
 effects so broad as to hide physiological consistency, then 
 the lack of taste is felt as well as seen. There is certain to 
 be incongruity of color, and also streaks of light, ill -con- 
 cealed, if concealed at all, by the lanterns which, in the hands 
 of the thinking mechanic, usually absorb and blend when 
 necessary. We once had a production of "A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream," more Edison than Shakespeare, more 
 mechanical device than Puck, more accessory than art. On 
 the other hand, Forbes Robertson^s desert scene in Shaw's 
 "chronicle" play, where Coesar first glimpses Cleopatra in 
 the arms of the Sphinx, was made spacious merely through 
 the varying of blue shadows on an almost empty stage, with 
 a back-drop of endless sky. 
 
 We are on the road to a great revolution in the pyschology 
 of the switchboard. Ever since Garrick brought with him 
 from France the footlight which replaced the ancient chan- 
 delier, we have been studying how to rid ourselves of it; 
 
DAVID BELASCO 133 
 
 we have a right to discard anything, to introduce any device 
 which will suit our purpose, and still retain the object of 
 illusion while enriching the picture. No one has yet estab- 
 lished sufficiently well the arguments for abandoning foot- 
 lights. There have recently been added to the mechanics of 
 stagecraft those electrical accessories which will facilitate 
 the subtle effects of shade and tint. 
 
 One sympathizes with the son of Ellen Terry, yet every- 
 body interested in the stage as a civic necessity on one hand, 
 and as an artistic need on the other, will agree that Gordon 
 Craig in "The Art of the Theatre" has carried his theories 
 of stage management a step too far, even as Maeterlinck 
 first did, in formulating his principles for the static drama, 
 in claiming for puppet plays substance rather than shadow. 
 No theatre man will deny that Craig's designs of scenes, so 
 shaded as to secure bos relief without "foots," are excellent 
 where the relief is needed. No manager is wholly oblivious 
 to the fact that though drama is essentially action, it is also 
 picture, where every line of the scene in its relation with the 
 size and color of the players, where every position, — all mean 
 relative grouping, fixed for balance and perspective. Miss 
 Terry's scenic background for Ibsen's "The Vikings at 
 Helgeland " adequately fulfilled the theory. Let the theatre 
 become a masterpiece of mechanism, with a technique pecu- 
 liar to itself, with a director above scene painter, actor, play- 
 wright, himself more creative than all three put together, — 
 let this bring us a dramatic renaissance, and one will scarce 
 need a written story to compass a plot so quickly flashed 
 upon the mind in light, song, dance, and pantomime. 
 
 Many of Mr. Belasco's plays, as plays, are lacking in the 
 qualities which his scenic artistry for the moment supplies. 
 "The Girl of the Golden West" is an excellent example 
 of such. The moving scene down the mountainside to the 
 door of the saloon does succeed marvelously in taking one 
 
 /■ 
 
134 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 out of the street and away from the city. On the other hand, 
 the moving-picture concerns, which to-day threaten the 
 theatre, might well point to this scene as a legitimate excuse 
 for their existence. 
 
 But that Mr. Belasco, with his scenery and with his stage 
 business, is inventive, becomes evident in any of his plays. 
 Take " The Rose of the Rancho," where Juanita and Kearney 
 are seated by the well; the lover moves nearer and nearer, 
 whereupon she seizes the gourd and throws v/ater on the 
 seat between them — a stroke of business worth a page of 
 dialogue. Take " The Warrens of Virginia" — after the war, 
 the Southern General is dozing in his garden; for the space 
 of a second, one hears the sigh of the wind, the spectral roll 
 of drums, the spirit breathing of the bugles — and he wakens 
 — all done with the deft modulation which might have been 
 turned into bathos by the slightest over-accentuation. The 
 manager is thus painting for others. 
 
 These are the qualities marking David Belasco, which 
 represent his place in American drama. He is the creative 
 manager who writes his plays by acting them; who, faced 
 by two stenographers, evolves his characters and situations 
 in actual movement, now thinking of a speech which he pins 
 up somewhere for his last act, again jotting down some busi- 
 ness, some note about this act or that, but always moving 
 surely toward the completion of the first draft, so as to begin 
 rehearsals. Were some of his plays published just as they 
 are typewritten for the stage, they would be invaluable texts 
 for the amateur playwright; they would point to the plati- 
 tudinous but none the less absolute fact that the theatre, 
 taken as a whole, demands that the playwright must be 
 master of more than one set of tools. 
 
Photo, by WTiite 
 
 Henry C. De Mille 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CASE OF PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 
 
 Not only has the drama an historical evolution, but, Hke 
 any other human activity, it is subject to inherited traits, 
 and is influenced by the spirit of the age. Ibsen believed in 
 the theory of imbibing the thoughts that were in the air, 
 rather than in limiting those thoughts by an amount of 
 contradictory reading. There is no doubt, for instance, 
 that through Mr. Carnegie's gift of ten millions of dol- 
 lars for the furtherance of peace, many more people will be 
 forced to think seriously on the subject, and already there 
 is as much discussion about who will write the great peace 
 drama, as about who will be the great American dramatist. 
 
 Subtle forces mould a man, but also evident circum- 
 stances. In "Famous Actor-Families in America," I sug- 
 gested the possibilities of applying Galton's law of inheri- 
 tance to the material I had gathered from various sources. 
 The method might likewise serve as a measure in deter- 
 mining how far Henry De Mille's career prompted his son, 
 William, to follow the same bent, and in tracing those 
 speculative characteristics of Steele Mackaye which are 
 now evident in his son, Percy. Sons of fathers who hold 
 positions in a profession are most likely to continue in that 
 profession, but whereas young De Mille, furthered by 
 Belasco, uses the theatre more as a business than as an art, 
 young Mackaye is prone to forget the theatre in a commend- 
 able, but over-serious, attitude toward art. 
 
136 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 The theatre has always been subject to attack; it has 
 always been threatened by poor quality and plethoric 
 quantity. Young De Mille takes things as he finds them, 
 making a reporter's use of a certain dramatic abihty; young 
 Mackaye is more morose than rebellious over the theatre, 
 about which he speculates in ideal fashion. But, never- 
 theless, these men either have to conform to the conventions 
 of the time and to the interests of the period, or else submit 
 to the relentless verdict of the people. 
 
 In the days when the Madison Square Theatre, in West 
 Twenty-fourth Street, New York, was the center of theatri- 
 cal interest, and when the Mallory Brothers combined this 
 business with that of issuing The Churchman, which still 
 survives as a religious weekly, theatre managers were read- 
 ing their own plays. Daly always gave personal attention 
 to the manuscripts sent him. Palmer announced openly 
 that he was not favorable to the native playwright. But, 
 to judge by the personal note-book of Henry De Mille, who 
 read plays with the assistance of Daniel Frohman, Franklin 
 Sargent, and David Belasco, the manuscripts continued to 
 flow into the office of the little playhouse. In three months, 
 during 1883, some two hundred dramas by Americans were 
 read, and the possible subjects were never accepted without 
 material alteration. When Bronson Howard's "Young 
 Mrs. Winthrop" was in preparation, it was rewritten in 
 accordance with a multitude of suggestions, and was then 
 handed over to Belasco, who had already evinced his re- 
 markable gift for certain phases of stage management. The 
 theatre of that day knew what it wanted, and the play- 
 wright was whipped into shape. The current papers were 
 then as persistent in their attack upon the insipidity of 
 the Madison Square drama, as critics are to-day upon the 
 pornographic literature which passes for virile thinking. 
 
 I believe that both young De Mille and young Mackaye 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 137 
 
 have an advantage in this race for dramatic honors; it 
 remains to be seen whether they will profit by the past his- 
 tory of the theatre. Their fathers were writing at a time 
 when their contemporaries in dramatic authorship were 
 Bronson Howard, Bartley Campbell, George Jessop, Fred 
 Marsden, A. C. Gunter, Fred Maeder, James J. McClosky, 
 A. R. Cazauran, Edward Harrigan, and H. G. Carleton. 
 WilHam De Mille is greatly in advance of that period, as 
 far as methods and interests are concerned; he is one of the 
 numberless newspaper men who is content with effective 
 incident, and he leaves speculation alone. In " Strongheart," 
 which had a slight problem of Indian blood in it, he failed 
 to do what he wished above all else to do; he originally 
 intended to consider the theme inadequately treated by 
 Edward Sheldon in "The Nigger " (1910). There is nothing 
 pioneer, or even largely stimulating in young De Mille. 
 
 Percy Mackaye is of a different stature; he comes out 
 of the past into the present, and his ear and heart have 
 caught certain phrases which remind him of the Golden 
 Age of Greece. De Mille shook from him the cap and gown 
 of Columbia University; Mackaye walks in the shadow of 
 Harvard, with an academic command of literature, and with 
 a poetic gift which is not spontaneous, though it be elab- 
 orate and earnestly used. Being a poet, we must compare him 
 with poets. 
 
 There is more hope for him than for Stephen Phillips, 
 who has steadily declined in effectiveness since writing 
 "Herod." They both are wedded to the past. Phillips 
 gave us a Francesca, Mackaye a Jeanne D'Arc; Phillips 
 wrote in the face of Goethe's "Faust," Mackaye in the face 
 of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." PhilHps turned to 
 Ulysses, Mackaye to Sappho and Phaon. In other words, 
 being poets who are using the theatre as a means of poetic 
 communication, rather than as a high end in itself, they 
 
138 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 largely adhere to the Shakespeare precedent of finding 
 inspiration for their plots outside of their native imagina- 
 tions. Unlike John Masefield, whose "Pompey the Great" 
 is a rewriting of history, and is tinged through and through 
 with broad and colorful expressions of democratic strength, 
 they unfold their dialogue in lines of haunting beauty but 
 of reminiscent measure. 
 
 Yet Mr. Mackaye possesses a humor which is totally 
 lacking in Phillips, a perspective of the present which allows 
 of such sparkling cynicism as one detects in "Mater'' and 
 "Anti-Matrimony," even if it is not sufficiently analyzed 
 to make him an invigorating critic of life, civic and personal. 
 
 He is a poet who has "murmurs and scents of the in- 
 finite seas," without any deep knowledge of the forces 
 of existence. Stephen Phillips utters haunting lines of pure, 
 sensuous beauty; Mackaye writes lines of equal beauty, but 
 lacking in that simple, lyric passion which makes " Francesca 
 da Rimini" so delicate. It strikes me that Mr. Mackaye 
 as a poet is only a vehicle for unformed and inadequately 
 founded social views. He has poetic quality rather than 
 the abiding strength of the true poet. Occasion has done 
 much to shape his course from the very day that his father 
 locked him, a sixteen-year-old boy, in a room and told him 
 to write a Storm Choral for a Columbian Exposition spec- 
 tacular, before he could come out.^ 
 
 1 Percy Mackaye was born in New York, March 16, 1875. He 
 took a Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard in 1897. He is the author 
 of "A Garland to Sylvia," written while he was in Europe. He 
 matriculated at the University of Leipzig, and his studies there 
 partly resulted in the writing of ''Fenris the Wolf" (1905). "The 
 Canterbury Pilgrims" (prose) was published in 1903, "Jeanne 
 D'Arc" in 1906; "Sappho and Phaon" in 1907. "The Scarecrow " 
 (1908), "Mater" (1908), "Anti-Matrimony " (1910), and " Thorough- 
 breds" (1911) are among his other pieces. 
 
 Among his produced plays, "Jeanne D'Arc" (1906) was mounted 
 by Sothern and Marlowe, Bertha Kalich appeared in "Sappho and 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 139 
 
 The theatre critic has from generation to generation 
 deplored the fast decading drama, and has vainly searched 
 for the art spot in the chaos of commercialism on which 
 to rest his hopes and to raise his temple. Traveling through 
 the slough, confident of a bright to-morrow, keen to the 
 civic necessity of the play, Mr. Mackaye is searching for 
 the art centre. He is intensely earnest, and the persistent 
 questions in his prose work, which follow one after the 
 other in logical order, point to undoubted weaknesses in 
 the present theatrical system. But deep conviction on 
 his part, however to be welcomed, does not result in a con- 
 viction on our part that endowment on the one hand is the 
 only way to free the theatre of present methods, or that 
 endowment on the other will create a better type of drama, 
 especially of the poetic drama. 
 
 Mr.Mackaye's "The Playhouse and the Play" (1909) is a 
 small volume of lectures which have been delivered before uni- 
 versity bodies, and which are now slightly added to, but 
 still unchanged as to intimate and personal style. The eye 
 is immediately caught by the frequency of italicized lines; 
 these might be taken as the measure of Mr. Mackaye's 
 argument. The scope is purely local, except where the 
 author's culture seeks to connect the present with Greek 
 civilization. The book is idealistic, not soundly philosophic 
 — idealism based on practical knowledge as a producing 
 playwright. In the building of a civic theatre for the people, 
 in the fitting of the drama to become a vehicle for the ideals 
 of democracy, to clear the theatrical field of its present 
 business standards is only one phase in the education of 
 
 Phaon" (1907), Henrietta Crosman in "Anti-Matrimony" (1910). 
 Both "Mater" (1908) and "The Scarecrow" (1911) have likewise 
 been given. 
 
 Mr. Mackaye has written many occasional poems and has pub- 
 lished a book of essays on the theatre, besides a prose version of 
 Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales " (1904). 
 
140 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 dramatic taste. I cannot see that divorcing art from money 
 will immediately improve art or better the supply and de- 
 mand — although it will clear the theatre atmosphere. 
 Any one at all versed in things of the stage will note the con- 
 sistency of Mr. Mackaye's "Law of Deterioration," based 
 on such self-evident facts as the preponderance of the emo- 
 tional demand over the intellectual, brought about by the 
 antagonism between the rational aim of theatrical business 
 and the rational aim of democratic art. Henry Arthur 
 Jones established this condition more fully in his essay: 
 " Our Modern Drama — Is It an Art or an Amusement? " 
 
 It is true that what the drama needs is to be subjected to 
 an atmosphere of artistic rather than of business compe- 
 tition. Yet one might justly fear that the removal of the 
 restraining hand of "profit and loss" would largely afford 
 added hope to the dilettante, to the disappointed play- 
 wright. No suggestion has been offered as to whether or 
 not there would be competent people to run the theatre, 
 or where and how the theatre-goers would receive the edu- 
 cation which would make them prefer Charles Rann Ken- 
 nedy's "The Winterfeast" to comic opera, or Mr. Mackaye's 
 "Mater" to vaudeville. We all deplore the benumbing 
 hand of commercialism, recognizing that business methods, 
 nevertheless, have raised the status of an actor from that 
 of vagahondia to that of professionalism, but it all depends 
 on what we mean by absolute freedom in the theatre to 
 convince us as to whether absolute endowment will hasten 
 the desired goal. 
 
 In his lectures on "The Drama of Democracy" and "The 
 Dramatist as Citizen," Mr. Mackaye is most suggestive; 
 if nothing else, his book will provoke discussion, and in my 
 opinion that is what he wishes, for he is the dramatist be- 
 neath it all. The dissemination of whatever seeds of art 
 may be in the American people through channels of least 
 
Percy INIacKaye and Charles Rann Kennedy " 
 
 Taken in the Bohemian Club's Redwood Grove, California, August, 1908 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 141 
 
 richness has bhghted the product. There is the fine art 
 for the few, and the vaudeville for the crowd. Conditions 
 are chiefly responsible for the absence of evidences pointing 
 to a fine art for the many, in other words — to a drama of 
 democracy. Mr. Mackaye has the evil well indicated here; 
 the poet in him feels the pulse of the people. He writes: 
 *'The status of the playhouse in society is as vital as the 
 status of the university in society. The dignity and effi- 
 ciency of the one demand the same safeguard against in- 
 ward deterioration as the dignity and efiiciency of the 
 other. The functions of both are educative." 
 
 Young Mackaye sincerely desires to be a citizen, but his 
 social philosophy is weak and his historical perspective is 
 not sufficiently defined to lend authority to the definitions 
 he frames or to the strictures he utters in his numerous 
 lectures and talks. From his father he has learned the use 
 of a certain largeness of scene; from the present he has 
 drawn a certain restlessness and shapeless idealism which are 
 waiting for systematizing. But he has not found himself, 
 and the reason lies, not in the theatrical conditions which 
 surround him, but in the inheritance and the tradition which 
 are his — the inheritance of his father, and the tradition of 
 Harvard University. 
 
 James Steele Mackaye was born in Buffalo during 1844, 
 and at the age of seven moved to New York. His father 
 was a man of some means, who had a home just outside of 
 Buffalo, known as Castle Mackaye; while his grandfather, a 
 Scotchman of sturdy build, wore the cloth, and died at the 
 advanced age of one hundred and twenty, boasting of hav- 
 ing lived one hundred years in the same parish. 
 
 The move to New York w^as due to legal connections of 
 Mackaye's father, who likewise, as a man of affairs, once 
 held the position of president of the Western Union Telegraph 
 Company. It was not until he went to Paris, at the age of 
 
142 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 sixteen, that Steele turned his attention to the stage, and 
 even then there was no opportunity to gratify his interest 
 practically. At eighteen he came back to America, where 
 for sixteen months he served in the army as a member of 
 the Seventh Regiment. Reaching the age of twenty-two, 
 and still intent on the stage, he procured a small engage- 
 ment at the Old Bowery Theatre in New York, but soon 
 after was sent abroad as an agent for buying pictures. Once 
 more in Paris, he haunted the studios and the theatres, and 
 chance took him in the path of Fran9ois Delsarte, who recog- 
 nized in him a startling likeness to his dead son, and who 
 took him under his tutelage. 
 
 From now on, and for many years to come, Mackaye was 
 to be an exponent of principles in acting which subdued the 
 old-time ranting, and aimed at the reproduction of natural 
 movement, and of what the papers of the time called " emo- 
 tionally gentle manner." So closely did the youthful actor 
 identify himself with the methods of his teacher, that he 
 was known in the papers as "Delsarte Mackaye"; but no 
 amount of ridicule could deter him from his set purpose. 
 Later in life, Mackaye wrote: 
 
 " A man to be a true actor must not only possess the power 
 to portray vividly the emotions which in any given situation 
 would be natural to himself, but he must study the char- 
 acter of the man whom he impersonates, and then act as 
 that man would act in a like situation. This is what Del- 
 sarte taught and what Rachel, Sontag, and Calvalho studied 
 with him." 
 
 During 1874, Mackaye lectured extensively on the Del- 
 sarte system, speaking of the occult nature of emotion; of 
 the science of expression, illustrated by pantomime; of the 
 necessity for aesthetic gymnastics, illustrated by chromatic 
 scales of emotion in the face and figure. 
 
 At that time there was something more or less theoretical 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 143 
 
 in such a method; people were regarded as poseurs who 
 adopted it. Hence it was that Mackaye was spoken of as 
 a speculative dreamer. It is true that throughout Hfe 
 people said of him that his crude idealism was due to de- 
 fects in his education; his fancies forced him into many 
 experiments which could not possibly find practical ful- 
 filment. But nevertheless, he was of a serious turn of mind, 
 and of an experimental nature, and these characteristics com- 
 bined to give him a distinct streak of philosophical specu- 
 lation, which is detected in his utterances upon sesthetics. 
 
 When Delsarte found himself in the midst of the Franco- 
 Prussian war, Mackaye was traveling in Switzerland (July, 
 1870); and on his return to America, hearing that his old 
 friend was in a destitute condition, he immediately arranged 
 for a lecture at Harvard University, the proceeds from which 
 — amounting to ten thousand francs — were sent to Del- 
 sarte. The latter died in 1871, bequeathing to his pupil 
 many unpublished manuscripts. There is no discounting 
 Mackaye's enthusiasm over the Delsarte principles; his 
 interest was not only deep, but his execution vivid, so much 
 so that Forrest, listening to him, jumped up in that im- 
 petuous manner of his, and exclaimed: "By G — d, my 
 noble boy, you have let in a flood of light!" Not only did 
 he establish a school of acting which should uphold French 
 naturalism, but his first venture in the theatrical field, the 
 St. James Theatre, which opened in January, 1872, was 
 popularly spoken of as the Delsarte house. 
 
 At the very outset it is well to emphasize the theatrical 
 rashness of Mackaye and the philosophic severity of his 
 criticism; it is well to note that his theory of acting affected 
 his work, making it self-conscious; while his tendency to 
 experiment made him limit or expand his ideas in mathe- 
 matical ratio. A man of many failures, he was yet the fore- 
 runner of diverse excellent theatrical innovations. His 
 
144 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 double stage for the Madison Square Theatre was not as 
 perfect as the revolving platform at the New Theatre, but 
 the principle of usefulness was practically the same. His 
 Spectatorium may have fallen into ruins, carrying with it 
 a fortune and the health of its conceiver, but it foreshadowed 
 the modern Hippodrome. He never profited by failure, and 
 his enthusiasm always made him forgetful of the fact that 
 finance requires practical guarantee. Yet no man of the 
 time, unless it was Henry De Mille, had better opportunity 
 than he to know the physical features of the theatre. 
 
 His career as actor opened in 1872, when he appeared 
 in "Monaldi," a Venetian story of the seventeenth century, 
 based on Washington Allston's novel. His pale, classic 
 features, his aquiline nose, his sensitive mouth, his intel- 
 lectual and quiet expression, all tended to mark this tall, 
 slender, and graceful man with distinction. I have before 
 me a clipping which conveys an impression of Mackaye's 
 nature beneath the practice of his Delsarte methods: "If 
 he were paralyzed from the neck down, he could express 
 more with his face than nine-tenths of justly celebrated 
 actors could with all the appliances which nature and art 
 have given them. His speechlessness is as crammed with 
 expression as a thunder-cloud with electricity." There were 
 stirring within him many conflicting interests; the author, 
 actor, and lecturer did not meet on common ground. During 
 part of 1872, Mackaye was in Paris, studying with Regnier, 
 while in the winter of that year he remained in England, 
 meeting Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, and Tom Taylor. 
 With the latter he was led into further experiment, collabo- 
 rating in the writing of such plays as "A Radical Fool," "Clan- 
 carty," and **Arkwright's Wife." At this time, also, he was 
 prompted to dramatize George Eliot's "Silas Marner"; 
 the matter went as far as his meeting the novelist, but at 
 the crucial point; Lewes, "the dragon," stepped in and put 
 
Photo, by barony 
 
 Aet. 35 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 145 
 
 a stop to further negotiations. It was in the Spring of this 
 year that Tom Taylor successfully urged Mackaye to ap- 
 pear as Hamlet, bringing to his interpretation all the origi- 
 nality of the Delsarte method (May 5, 1872). An edition of 
 the play was issued with notes, and with indication of new 
 stage business. 
 
 Evidently Mackaye was encouraged by his start, for I 
 have the record of a booklet, printed in 1872 while he was 
 in Paris, presenting "Extracts from the Press in Reference 
 to the Three Months' Dramatic Season of James Steele 
 Mackaye in New York City, from January 8 to April 1, 
 1872." During that period, Nym Crinkle appears to have 
 come to his rescue, while he was being attacked for his 
 persistency in the Delsarte methods. This was the season 
 of the St. James Theatre, where, on February 1, 1872, 
 Mackaye's "Marriage,'' an adaptation of Octave Feuillet's 
 "Julie," was given a hearing. 
 
 Mackaye's novitiate in the art of playwriting was spent 
 in collaboration and in adaptation, two of the dominant 
 tendencies of the day. Not only this, but the men associated 
 with the Madison Square Theatre reinforced the ideas 
 presented by others. Being actors as well as writers, they 
 knew wherein weak situations might be bettered. So that 
 Mackaye's list of plays, while pointing to technical activity, 
 does not impress one with any striking originality. Here 
 again we find the man meeting with success, yet not suffi- 
 ciently concentrated to be more than of temporary influence. 
 As an author, he is to be credited with the following: 
 
 "Marriage" (1872); "Arkwright's Wife" (1873); "Clan- 
 carty" (1874, with Taylor); "Rose Michel" (1875, collabo- 
 ration); "Queen and Woman" (1876, adaptation from 
 Victor Hugo, with G. V. Pritchard); "Won at Last" (1877); 
 "Through the Dark" (1878); "An Iron Will" (1879, later 
 " Hazel Kirke," 1880) ; ''A Fool's Errand " (1881, adaptation) ; 
 
146 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 "Dakolar" (1884); "In Spite of All" (1885); "Rienzi" 
 (1886, rewritten for Barrett); "Anarchy" (1887); "A 
 Noble Rogue" (1888; also "Money Mad," modeled on 
 the style of Hugo's "Jean Val jean"); "Paul Kauvar" (known 
 as "Anarchy"). 
 
 The majority of these plays contained melodrama com- 
 mon to that period. It was a period when the physical 
 outlines of the theatre were materially changing; when the 
 old gas-jets, laboriously turned on at each performance, 
 were now on the eve of being simultaneously ignited by an 
 electric spark; when Ogden Doremus was experimenting 
 with asbestos curtains, to give fireproof protection to the 
 theatre; when Mackaye himself was designing orchestra 
 chairs. It was the later day of the Boucicault drama, which 
 had made demands upon the scenic pictures, introducing 
 physical details that were regarded as marvelous. It was 
 the time of Kate Claxton, Ida Vernon, Clara Morris, Mon- 
 tague, Gilbert, Holland, and Ponisi. 
 
 Mackaye fell readily into the atmosphere; he imbibed 
 much of the Boucicault technique, without its flexibility, 
 without its humor, without its easy grace and cheerfulness. 
 And yet he was not considered a conservative; on the con- 
 trary, the papers regarded him very much as a defier of 
 tradition, especially in comparison with Wallack and Daly. 
 He was only rash, however, in the outward scope of the 
 theatre; for his plays are constructed along conventional 
 lines, with an emotionalism either akin to Boucicault or 
 to Dumas' "Camille." 
 
 The five acts of "Won at Last" are epitomized graphically 
 in the program as: "Act I, Ashes; Act II, Embers; Act 
 III, Fixe; Act IV, Flame; Act V, Fireside." " Hazel Kirke," 
 which was first presented in 1879 under the title of "The 
 Iron Will," bears all the characteristics of the romantic and 
 melodramatic school of Boucicault. Indeed, critics never 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 147 
 
 let Mackaye alone about the reminiscent touches to be found 
 in his dramas. Earnest though he always was, and however 
 high his ideals, he could not escape the sensationalism of 
 Tennyson's and Charles Reade's "Dora"; of "Amy Rob- 
 sart," and of " Rose Michel," which he helped to adapt. 
 
 Mackaye and De Mille were a great part of the force of 
 the little Madison Square Theatre — a theatre whose greatest 
 thorns seem to have been the Rev. Dr. G. S. Mallory and 
 Marshall Mallory. They were astute business men, and 
 understood how to obtain the best of any bargain. When 
 Mackaye went to them, the understanding was that he was 
 to relinquish all patents and copyrights for the period of 
 ten years, and that he was to have five thousand dollars 
 and profits under certain conditions. But the contract was 
 not definite enough; on either side it might be disturbed at 
 will. "Hazel Kirke" ran for nearly five hundred nights, 
 with Mackaye every now and then assuming the role of 
 Dunstan, but whenever the Mallorys had the suspicion that 
 they were losing money, it was a signal for them to try to 
 revoke their contracts. In fact, the theatre of that day was 
 not so good as the theatre of the present. Boucicault w^as 
 continually involved in litigation, and all dramatists had 
 their successes pirated on every occasion. In 1881, accord- 
 ing to one authority, four companies were enjoined for 
 playing distorted versions of "Hazel Kirke." 
 
 However much Mackaye may have had the correct idea 
 regarding the close treatment of drama, it was only in the 
 expansiveness of outward detail that he dared depart from 
 the conventional structure. No man realized more philo- 
 sophically than he that a good play must contain some deep 
 knowledge of human nature, some wide experience of life, 
 and some surety in dealing with the craft of the stage. And 
 he drew from himself and his own ambition, when he stated 
 the requisites of a dramatist to be: 
 
148 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 "Mechanical instinct, poetic fancy, sensitive sympathies, 
 passionate fervor and vivid imagination, thoroughness in 
 preparation, industry in elaboration, conscience in revision, 
 courage in excision, and dominating all this, that breadth 
 of mind which breeds humility, and that depth of heart 
 whose understanding love goes out in charity to all mankind." 
 
 But though he would have had the process so, plays of 
 the Daly period were not evolved; they were not intensive. 
 Realism was just beginning to modify the romantic glow of 
 "The Two Orphans" and "The Lady of Lyons," while it 
 could hardly be claimed that violent action had been suc- 
 ceeded by rational themes. What Mackaye called "the 
 focal purpose" of a play had not departed from French models 
 or from French emotionalism. Howard, Belasco, De Mille, 
 and Mackaye all came under its spell, the latter speculating 
 upon a way of escape. "The master playwright," so he 
 said, "combines the constructive faculty of the mechanic, 
 and the analytical mind of a philosopher, with the aesthetic 
 instinct of a poet, and the ethical ardor of an apostle." 
 
 There is no doubting the truth that Mackaye was serious- 
 minded; in fact, he was continually active, a peculiar com- 
 bination of a Swedenborgian, a theatrical Edison, and an 
 undisciplined reader of Tyndall, Huxley, and Spencer. His 
 interests lay between religion and civil engineering; he was 
 diversely equipped, and a specialist only in what actual 
 experience had taught him. But he never heeded experience 
 for long, preferring to follow his imagination and his invent- 
 iveness. Like all dramatists, he was alive to the moment, 
 and when, in 1887, his "Paul Kauvar" was presented, con- 
 taining all the earmarks of its kind in flimsy sentiment, 
 verboseness, and theatrical effect, he nevertheless claimed him- 
 self to be deeply concerned in the problem of "anarchy," 
 under which name the play was first known. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the papers called "Paul 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 149 
 
 Kauvar" "tumultuous and declamatory/* and critics saw 
 in it imitations of Bulwer, the play attracted wide attention, 
 since there was beneath it a slight tinge of contemporaneous- 
 ness, despite its Red Terror atmosphere. For Mackaye, 
 being convinced that demagogues were spreading a spirit of 
 anarchy among the masses, determined to show wherein 
 tyranny was unjust, in the hopes of counteracting a revo- 
 lutionary spirit which he felt existed among the people. To 
 do this, he demanded a large spectacle, which drew from Nym 
 Crinkle the remarks: "Mr. Steele Mackaj'-e, whatever else 
 he may be, is not a 'lisping hawthorn bud.' He doesn't 
 embroider such napkins as the 'Abbe Constantin,' and he 
 can't arrange such waxworks as 'Elaine.' He can't stereo- 
 scope an emotion, but he can incarnate it if you give him 
 people enough." 
 
 The play was doubtless the outcome of certain ideas which 
 were in the air. It was the old cry which was raised in re- 
 gard to the influx of emigrants whose excessive poverty, 
 together with the yoke of political oppression, drove them 
 to the new country. But with them Mackaye felt that 
 they brought certain foreign ideas which were inimical to the 
 welfare of the American laborer. So it was that " Anarchy," 
 besides being a melodramatic spectacular, was also a pur- 
 pose play in the nev/spaper sense. In 1888, he wrote: 
 
 " In the struggle between capital and labor in this country, 
 the grasping spirit of corporations and the demoralizing 
 influence of political corruption are constantly affording 
 the demagogue or the dreamer, who has nothing to lose and 
 everything to gain by the destruction of civil order, an op- 
 portunity to preach anarchic doctrines with great plausibility. 
 When I first discovered the large extent to which the pas- 
 sions of the working classes were being played upon by the 
 fine phrases of these insidious foes of the American Republic, 
 I detennined tp investigate; ag carefully as qircumstance^ 
 
150 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 would permit, the means by which these foreign influences 
 were seeking to achieve their diaboKc results in this country." 
 
 After his dispute with the Mallorys, Mr. Mackaye went 
 over to the Lyceum Theatre, on Fourth Avenue, which 
 playhouse soon began to gain prestige under Daniel 
 Frohman, and where E. H. Sothern was on the eve of 
 large recognition. Mackaye's enthusiasm, his charm of 
 manner and his grace, made him well liked, and he was 
 much more at ease in private talk than in acting. He 
 was a charming conversationalist, and possessed what 
 critics called a mind " ratiocinative, not poetic." Inter- 
 ested in painting, sculpture, teaching, managing, playwrit- 
 ing and inventing, he lacked system; he was devoid of 
 concentration. Philosophically, he was under the influence 
 of the transcendentalists, and even the mystic touches 
 in Delsarte bore evidences of Catholic symbolism. His 
 language, outside his plays, was marked by metaphysical 
 distinctions, seen, for instance, in an excellent letter sent to 
 his son from Chicago, on December 15, 1893, in answer to 
 Percy's objections to changes made in some chorals he had 
 written. The statements show first of all a serious attitude 
 toward all creative work, as well as a modesty which was no 
 small part of his charm; they are likewise evidences of a 
 speculativ3 mind which delighted in analyzing the absolute, 
 the relative, and the conscious in terms of art. This 
 is what he wished to do in his big Columbian spectacle 
 prepared for his Spectatorium ; every detail of it was to have 
 philosophical value; even the choruses were to be represen- 
 tative of fine distinctions. 
 
 He felt that Percy, at an early age, should have grasped 
 this in the writing of the poetic tasks set before him. 
 
 "Everything in the Cosmic order," he said, "is perfect 
 or complete. When I speak of the Time ChoruSj I mean 
 that which voices the accomplishment of the past. . . . The 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 151 
 
 Past Time Chorus, philosophically, represents the real world, 
 and the Future Time Clwrus represents the ideal world, 
 while the Eternity Chorum represents the essential world — 
 the world of principle or spirit. . . . The spirit of the whole 
 is the perfect spirit — universal spirit — the divine spirit. 
 The spirit of the past is the imperfect spirit and the de- 
 moniac spirit." 
 
 His distinctions of mortal and immortal consciousness 
 clearly mark his scattered reading in metaphysical fields. 
 
 We now reach the culmination of Mr. Mackaye's life, at 
 the time of the Chicago Exposition of 1893. All his theatri- 
 cal extravagance overflowed and ran riot in the Columbian 
 Celebration Company, organized to exploit his Spectatorium, 
 a building devised for his entertainment, which was called 
 " Spectatorus." This was a combination of grand scenic dis- 
 play with Oratorio, in which stage realism was to be carried 
 to its highest perfection. It was to be a Hippodrome in 
 size, with appliances of every conceivable power, so arranged 
 as to create illusions of the noblest order. The stage, called 
 a " Scenitorium", was to contain an immense reservoir for 
 water effects, and around this were to be grouped Mac- 
 kaye's remarkable inventions. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into details regarding this mam- 
 moth shell. In it were to be erected automatic combination 
 stages, allowing of any variety of motions; wave-current 
 makers, for the creation of currents of water which were to 
 be regulated as to velocity and height; wind-current makers, 
 so conceived as to create cyclone velocity from the gentlest 
 breeze; weather-makers, for atmospheric effects, such as 
 large rainbows; illuminoscopes, "by means of which the 
 scope and character of the illumination of the scene can be 
 instantly determined;" colorators, for tints according to 
 the changing hours; nebulators, for cloud effects; and a 
 luxauleator, which was to be a dazzling sheet of light to take 
 
152 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the place of a curtain. Examining the large scope of Mack- 
 aye's idea, it is surprising how near he came to the concep- 
 tion of a Hippodrome. He aimed at mechanical duplication 
 of Nature; mechanical acceleration of mystery. The pro- 
 duction in such a huge machinery was to be called a "Spec- 
 tatorio," which was " a species of performance celebrating a 
 theme which may be either historic, fabulous, or fanciful. It 
 illustrates its subjects by great pictures — whose stories 
 are told in pantomime, and whose sentimental, ethical, or 
 ideal meaning is celebrated or interpreted by music." On 
 one hand he had in mind the most extravagant display of 
 Barnum; on the other he accepted as a model Cody's Wild 
 West Show. Undoubtedly the educational vastness of such 
 an enterprise met with some enthusiasm and support; prep- 
 arations actually began for the mounting of "The Great 
 Discovery," which was to epitomize the life of Columbus. 
 The financial figures of returns were chimerical, with 
 the seating capacity of over ten thousand people, and the 
 other sources of income to cover the initial expenditure of 
 nearly a million dollars. The structure was to have occu- 
 pied the northeastern corner of Jackson Park. 
 
 Any one in the theatre will understand that the very 
 magnitude of the undertaking was enough to handicap 
 business and to kill the man in control. Mackaye's whole 
 nervous system went to pieces as he saw the money slipping 
 from his hands. The Spectatorium was only a skeleton 
 when the company went into the hands of a receiver because 
 of depression in Wall Street. His brain teeming with projects, 
 Mackaye was able, through a natural gift of persuasiveness, 
 to carry any amount of enthusiasm. But now he was com- 
 pletely broken in health. He was given a benefit which en- 
 abled him to start on a trip to California, but on his way, 
 while passing through Timpas, Colorado, he died aboard 
 the train, on February 25, 1894. 
 
PERCY MACKAYE AND HIS FATHER 153 
 
 In this career we find many evidences of the son, Percy, 
 writer of dramas; of the son, James, instructor at Harvard, 
 and author of a philosophical, sociological discussion of " The 
 Economy of Happiness"; and of the son whose interest in 
 nature is marked.^ The speculative tendency is in the 
 Mackaye blood, and a staid seriousness. Yet Percy has a 
 keen sense of humor which he realized in "Mater" and in 
 "Anti-Matrimony," but sedulously governs because of his 
 Harvard training. Steele Mackaye, in his experiments, 
 foreshadowed the present possibilities of the mechanical 
 stage; he would have been greater had he possessed re- 
 straint. Curiously, his son, Percy, is handicapped by this 
 very quality of restraint. 
 
 1 There was also a son whose stage career was cut short. A 
 daughter, Hazel, has been on the stage. Mrs. Steele Mackaye is 
 the author of several dramatizations which have been published. 
 
 The variety of Mr. Mackaye's work since 1910 is fairly well 
 represented by the mention of the following: ''To-morrow" (1911); 
 ''Yankee Fantasies" (1912); "The Modern Reader's Chaucer" 
 (1912); "Sanctuary: A Bird Masque" (1914); "A Thousand Years 
 Ago" (1914); "St. Louis: A Masque" (1914); "The Immigrants" 
 (1915); "Caliban" (1916); "Sinbad" (1917). His "Canterbury 
 Pilgrims," set to music by Reginald de Koven, was produced during 
 the season of 1916-17 by the Metropolitan Opera Company. His 
 libretto, "Sinbad," has been set to music by Frederic S. Converse, 
 but has not as yet been produced. He is also the author of a volume 
 entitled "The Civic Theatre" (1912). 
 
 Mr. Mackaye has also written a series of two articles on his father, 
 entitled "Steele Mackaye, Dynamic Artist of the American Thea- 
 tre," issued in The Drama, November, 1911, pp. 138-161, and Feb- 
 ruary, 1912, pp. 153-173. As yet no definitive edition of Steele 
 Mackaye's plays has been issued, but his "Hazel Kirke" is included 
 in A, H. Quinn's "Representative American Plays," and his "Paul 
 Kauvar" in M. J. Moses's "Representative Dramas by American 
 Dramatists," Vol. III. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CARDBOARD PLAY AND THE WELL-MADE PLAY: 
 AUGUSTUS THOMAS AND WILLIAM GILLETTE 
 
 I 
 
 There is no strict grievance against the outward excellence 
 of the cardboard play. It is planned according to the latest 
 devices, and its structure is pleasing to the eye. Yet it is 
 like a house untenanted, like a shell without the kernel. 
 
 It is of the utmost importance that drama be externalized, 
 that its scenes be proportioned and in good taste. But this 
 does not mean that the yard-stick measurements of the 
 average manager are sufficient to guarantee a success in 
 his theatre. Every play is subjected to the same processes 
 of preparation; the extravaganza as v/ell as the problem 
 drama has its scene and its costume; and every play, what- 
 ever its scope or character, has to be rehearsed. 
 
 In mounting a comic opera, the stage manager is chiefly 
 concerned with pleasing the eye; the attention is here 
 carried in channels of least mental exertion. In the final 
 analysis of any effect created in this manner, audiences 
 feel that they have been cheated, since the light and paint 
 of the stage are only accessories, veritable appetizers for the 
 imagination, and do not take the place of nature. The 
 Rosalind of the boards lacks the fresh youth of the Rosalind 
 of the greensward. 
 
 On the other hand, in mounting a straight drama, with 
 any serious undercurrent of motive, it is incumbent upon 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 155 
 
 the stage manager to be particular about harmonizing scene 
 with idea. He leaves this to his working staff, more than 
 likely, thoroughly content if, during rehearsal, he detects any 
 variety of design, any new effect of novel action. A theatre 
 man once said to me, not realizing the poignant truth of 
 his statement: " I hear with my eyes, and see with my ears." 
 
 It is not an easy matter to balance consistency with action, 
 and it is well-nigh impossible for the dramatist, if he be 
 lacking in psychological situation, to insert it after his play 
 is written; he is continually forced to recast his dialogue so 
 as to make possible certain motives and certain actions. 
 
 From the moment a dramatic author conceives his plot, 
 to the first night, he travels the long road of preparation; 
 considering how long, it is a wonder that more plays are not 
 silently withdrawn before they are publicly condemned. 
 But the theatrical manager finds himself economically in 
 the position of a landlord whose houses have to be filled, and 
 the danger of the situation lies in the fact that he has more 
 comfortable theatres than he has deserving dramas. That 
 is why he leans so heavily upon the cardboard play. If it 
 is weak on the first night, it may be bolstered up the next 
 morning. The manager and author have had time to watch 
 the effect of scenes and of bits of dialogue upon the people. 
 The "prompt copy" of every play contains marks indicating 
 where those "in front" laughed, where they cried, where 
 they were confused. And then the play is touched up, cut 
 here, or shifted and heightened there. I remember hearing 
 Augustus Thomas, during the second night of " Mrs. Leffing- 
 welFs Boots," make plans to change certain spots that did 
 not seem quite "to get over the foots." 
 
 The true dramatic author is always thoroughly alive to 
 the surroundings of his play, to the precise atmosphere of 
 his scene. While he leaves it to the art of the stage carpenter 
 and of the scene painter to perfect his mental picture in 
 
156 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 projection, nevertheless, in the writing of his play the 
 dramatist allows atmosphere to affect his dialogue as well 
 as his action. 
 
 Not only details of furnitm-e, of dress, of architecture, 
 decorate the moment in the story, but each object of external 
 position measures the temperament and the personality 
 of the character, or group of characters, approaching the 
 climax of the particular incident in life called a drama. 
 
 Clyde Fitch read me the script of "The City," and 
 in describing to me the locale, he indicated how the trees 
 were placed on the lawn of the country house; he saw plainly 
 the living-room in which the tragedy of the first act was to 
 take place. The ground-plan of the entire play was as real 
 as though he had himself lived with his people. To him 
 the essential fact was that his family, which he had chosen 
 for "The City," could not possibly live in any other kind 
 of house. He had his scene built, he selected his furniture, 
 he clothed his actors, to satisfy his sense of environment. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the first two things to be 
 done, after a play is chosen for production, are to have the 
 stage director make sketches of the scene, while the dram- 
 atist — if he be well known — or the stage manager, begins 
 to "cast" the characters. Mr. Fitch always personally 
 superintended these details. Compare a preparatory sketch 
 of scenes for "The Music Master" with the scene finally 
 adopted, after Mr. Belasco's practical alterations. That 
 which was taken from the original sketch had to be dis- 
 carded for purposes of stagecraft. Nothing is done toward 
 actually building the scenery for a play until the sketches 
 have been approved, and until the "model" has been con- 
 structed. Then the carpenter and painter are allowed to 
 begin their work. 
 
 The preliminary drawings made for a production include 
 costume sketches of varied design and color. Even as an 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 157 
 
 artist or a sculptor makes diverse outlines of arms, and 
 eyes, and noses, so the costumer prepares " boot plots,'* " fan 
 plots," and studies out carefully, if his play calls for archaic 
 setting, every detail relating to the dress of his period. 
 
 From an orchestra chair, one does not fully realize the 
 amount of ingenuity required in preparing the cardboard 
 surroundings for an historical, a fantastical, or a romantic 
 play. Dances peculiar to locality, as in Mary Austin's 
 "The Arrow Maker," or in Richard Walton TuUy's "The 
 Rose of the Rancho," or in Victor Herbert's "Natoma," 
 have to be worked out by diagram. Colors have to be massed 
 and harmonized, and characters have to be kept within the 
 tone of the picture. When large choruses are used, the care 
 in such detail must be constant. The Hippodrome always 
 makes use of immense ballets, where, if one but half close 
 his eyes, blurring the individuals, a spectrum-scheme of the 
 whole is observed. Masses of color are circulated in well- 
 conceived, sinuous design — geometry turned into the poetry 
 of motion. 
 
 The cardboard aspects of a play are in the hands of four 
 men: the scene painter, the stage carpenter, the electrician 
 and the property man. Each at first does his work sepa- 
 rately, but in such a way that when all come together, their 
 "effects" dovetail. The mounting of a play is much like 
 a cut-up puzzle; there is a very definite design somewhere, 
 which the stage manager has in mind. Even in the acting of 
 a play, rehearsals are conducted in fragments, the players go- 
 ing off to odd corners of the room to discuss their " business," 
 while others are doing a scene under the direct supervision 
 of the dramatist. Mr. Fitch was an indefatigable worker 
 at rehearsal; Mr. Thomas possesses the happy faculty of 
 keeping the actors interested. 
 
 The play is practically rehearsed by the time scenery 
 and costumes are ready; the actors are "letter perfect," and 
 
158 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 are fairly familiar with the " properties " which they are 
 going to use. Up to this time, the king has probably sat 
 upon a kitchen chair for his throne; the princess has dropped 
 upon the bare boards of the dusty stage for the greensward; 
 while the retainers of the palace have had a veritable 
 Belshazzar's feast, without even the assistance of papier 
 mache venison. I attended several rehearsals of " Pelleas et 
 Melisande," when Oscar Hammers tein was preparing 
 Debussy's opera. In the balcony scene, Melisande, dressed 
 in a street gown, with a toque, made believe she was 
 shaking out her golden locks; while up an ordinary house 
 ladder climbed the love-consumed Pelleas, in a brown frock 
 coat and derby hat! It is at such moments that all arguments 
 as to the need of scenery and costume are difficult to offset 
 with any plea for not needing scenery at all. It has its legit- 
 imate uses; its undoing is bad taste, which leads to repletion. 
 
 The theatre people do not proceed blindly in their building 
 of the cardboard play; while they are usually lavish in their 
 scenic scope, they know what they want before they look 
 for it; it may not be the right thing, or the most artistic 
 thing, but it suits their limited purposes. They are quicker 
 to discover a flaw in stage-setting than to question the in- 
 tellectual value of their amusement; hence, their visual 
 power far exceeds their critical judgment. They usually 
 possess a "scenario" knowledge of the play, which they 
 apply to their "stage model," in which draperies, furniture, 
 ornaments, and those numberless details grouped under 
 the name of "properties," are accurately placed. One can 
 imagine the necessity for this doll house, this facsimile of 
 the larger thing, this miniature theatre. But the mental 
 measurement of the cardboard play goes no further, as far 
 as the average manager is concerned. 
 
 The perfection to which the cardboard play has been 
 brought is at once its asset and its weakness. It is so easy 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 159 
 
 to interest the eye with devices, that the manager has reached 
 the point where he can disguise a threadbare plot beneath 
 mechanical novelty. No criticism can be brought against 
 the manager that he is miserly in his outlay for an "attrac- 
 tion." Fortunes are spent every year in the cardboard 
 houses, which amuse the eye but which bring no profit to 
 the mind or imagination. To judge by the character of 
 plays produced in a season, the professional "reader" for 
 a theatre watches more for effect than for content. Depend- 
 ence is placed, not so much on the dramatist as on the theatre 
 staff of trained mechanics. The danger to the American 
 playwright, which lurks in this dependence, is that he trans- 
 fers his psychological values from character to scene. 
 
 Undoubtedly there is art in the external drama, but its 
 perfection is the danger we have to guard against. Com- 
 mercialization will exist in this phase, just as long as the 
 period of preparation is spent on "effect." For on the first 
 night, with the scene set, the lights lit, the "properties" 
 placed, and the actors at work, the manager is often forced 
 to realize too late that he has no play. 
 
 II 
 
 Clyde Fitch possessed ingenuity; so does Augustus 
 Thomas. Clyde Fitch depended very largely on external 
 detail, as in "Girls"; Augustus Thomas piled up eccentric 
 marks to such an extent in "The Other Girl" that persons 
 w^ho did not know Broadway could not understand it. In 
 " The City," Mr. Fitch proved, just before his death, that he 
 could handle a powerful theme, however disagreeable; in 
 "The Witching Hour" and subsequent dramas, Mr. Thomas 
 clearly shov/s that the cardboard play is no longer sufficient 
 to carry his new interests. 
 
 Mr. Thomas' early pieces, "Alabama" (1891), "In 
 
160 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 'Mizzoura'" (1893), and "Arizona" (1900) dealt with a life 
 which stirred with something more than smart-set witticism 
 and city environment. Then followed a period when French 
 technique gripped him, and he has never escaped his in- 
 debtedness to the foreign facility for making conversation. 
 His broad comedy period encouraged him to draw upon his 
 newspaper observation, and to produce plays deliciously clever 
 but effervescent. 
 
 Most of his plots were fragile, slender threads of experience 
 to carry his fine sense of humor. "Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots'* 
 (1905) is an apt example of this. On the other hand, "The 
 Earl of Pawtucket" (1903), a Dundreary and Chumley 
 imitation, and "On the Quiet" (1901) proved to be farces 
 of excellent pattern. Meeting success with the former, 
 through the acting success of Lawrence D'Orsay, Thomas 
 produced another play, "The Embassy Ball" (1905), scin- 
 tillating but flimsy, a species of wit which in no way 
 touched the heart, and unhappily distorted American 
 types. 
 
 Mr. Thomas has technique at his finger's end; he is a man 
 of the world, with a reporter's instinct for timely interests. 
 As all dramatists should be, he is thoroughly familiar with 
 American life, and since his broad comedy period, his obser- 
 vation and his thought have deepened. Born in St. Louis, 
 Mo., on Januar^^ 8, 1859,^ he was public-school bred; became 
 page-boy in Washington during the Forty-first Congress; 
 studied law; became a writer and illustrator for such papers 
 as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Republic, the 
 Kansas City Times, the Kansas City Mirror (1886), the 
 Northwestern Miller, and the New York World. Six years 
 were passed in the freight department of a railroad, and with 
 
 1 See Dithmar, "Augustus Thomas," Bookbuyer, May, 1898, 
 16:323; " Hoosier Doctor," Critic, ii. s., 27:286; " The Meddler," 
 Critic, N. B., 30:297. 
 
Photo, by Schloss 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 161 
 
 his knowledge of law he made ready to enter politics. His 
 interest in the latter is constantly manifest. 
 
 His debut as dramatist was made when, in 1887, he dram- 
 atized Mrs. F. H. Burnett's "Editha's Burglar" and also 
 acted in it. Before this, as early as sixteen, he wrote plays 
 like "Alone" and "A Big Rise," for amateurs.^ 
 
 Mr. Thomas is the author of tlu-ee plays that, while they 
 show the technique for which he is justly noted, likewise 
 sound an interest in telepathy. These are "The Witching 
 Hour" (1908), a manuscript which he had held for ten years, 
 until the time was opportune; "The Harvest Moon" (1909), 
 and "As a Man Thinks" (1911). In "The Witching 
 Hour " a psychology of suggestion, of intimidation, is devel- 
 oped with more consistency and with equally as much dra- 
 matic effectiveness as in Charles Klein's "The Third Degree." 
 "The Harvest Moon," while not as interesting a plot, serves 
 further to convince one of the belief in Thomas's sincere 
 interest in subconscious effect. His science is rudimentary; 
 his exposition such as a man who had seen these phenomena 
 would describe them. But none the less are they interesting, 
 and dramatically effective. Some may say that Mr. Thomas's 
 
 1 A full list of Mr. Thomas's plays would include "A Man of 
 the World" (1889); "Reckless Temple" (1890); ''Afterthoughts" 
 (1890); dramatization of F. Hopkinson Smith's ''Colonel Carter 
 of CartersviUe" (1892); "The Capitol" (1894); "New Blood" 
 (1894); "The Man Upstairs" (1895); "The Overcoat" (1898); 
 "The Hoosier Doctor" (1898); "The Meddler" (1898); "Oliver 
 Goldsmith" (1900); "Colorado" (1901); "Soldiers of Fortune" 
 (1902); "The Education of Mr. Pipp" (1903), based on Gibson's 
 pictures; and "De Lancey" (1905). On a souvenir program for a 
 special performance of "The Harvest Moon," given on Oct. 28, 
 1909, for the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, of which Mr. Thomas 
 is a member, I note these additional plays: "The Burglar," "A 
 Night's Frolic," "A New Year's Call," "Surrender," "For Money," 
 "A Proper Impropriety," "The Music Box," "Chimmie Fadden," 
 "The Jucklins," "That Overcoat," "The Ranger." I have seen 
 casual reference to "In Illinoy" and "Don't Tell Her Husband." 
 
162 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 attitude toward the theatre is unscholastic; but if we stop 
 to think, the theatre is never scholastic; it rises upon the 
 popular interests of the people. It is not necessary for a 
 drama success to be literature. I remember Mr. Thomas 
 summing up a few of his plays in this fashion: 
 
 "'Alabama,' if it were produced now, would have no 
 special audience or following. It came at a time, however, 
 when the country was tired of sectional strife, and when it 
 believed there should be a reconciliation. Colonel Henry 
 Watterson said, in two public speeches, and also editorially, 
 that up to the time of the production of * Alabama,' he had 
 had no assistance of any kind to bring about this reconcil- 
 iation between the sections, and that 'Alabama' did more 
 in one night than he had been able to do in ten years. 
 
 "'Arizona'," he continued, "was played just at the time 
 of the Spanish War, and had to do with the raising of a 
 volunteer regiment — young men going to the front. 
 
 "'The Other Girl' was popular when the prize fighter 
 was an idol in New York, just after the repeal of the Horton 
 Law. * The Witching Hour ' is a seizure of the general atten- 
 tion that is given to telepathy and allied topics. And under 
 all that, lies my own theory, expressed on more than one 
 occasion, that the theatre is a place for the visualizing of 
 ideas — that the theatre is vital only when it is visualizing 
 some idea then and at the time in the public mind. The 
 theatre is a vital part of everyday life; it is an institution, 
 and as an institution it has a claim upon the popular at- 
 tention principally in that fact. When it becomes a thing 
 preservative, a museum for certain literary forms, or a 
 laboratory for galvanizing archaic ideas, it is almost use- 
 less, and seldom successful as a business enterprise." 
 
 In " As a Man Thinks," Mr. Thomas's vision is no longer 
 fragmentary. Once he used to read his papers too assidu- 
 ously, but now he has added to this a wider culture and a 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 163 
 
 deeper understanding. The organic unity is purely intel- 
 lectual, yet his dialogue is so excellently constructed that 
 one does not realize how many problems he drops at will, 
 attacking the next with equal vigor and freshness. The 
 interesting point to note about Mr. Thomas's telepathic 
 dramas is that he not alone states a problem; in addition, 
 he assumes an attitude. This is why " As a Man Thinks " 
 is invigorating. 
 
 Where Mr. Thomas has grown is in the manifold variety 
 of his statements; in the digested, rather than in the re- 
 flected, opinions he expresses. "As a Man Thinks" should 
 easily win its way on the Continent; by its French technique 
 it should be an example to Henri Bernstein. But notwith- 
 standing, it has, in its last act — which is a play in itself — 
 what the American people epitomize as "uplift." The title 
 of this play is simply a variation of the biblical phrasing, 
 " As ye sow, so shall ye reap." The play itself has no single 
 purpose, but on the other hand it has no indefinite suggest- 
 iveness. 
 
 Never has Mr. Thomas dipped his ladle into the crucible 
 of life with more effect; never has he had surer grip of the 
 handle. As a man thinks, so are his plays. There is every 
 evidence in this latest one (1911) that Mr. Thomas is think- 
 ing. And because of that, he has ceased placing so much 
 dependence upon the cardboard house. His dramas are 
 always well mounted; they always contain atmosphere in 
 their scenes; they are always well dressed and well acted. 
 But there is something beyond the witticism of lines in 
 Thomas of the present period. He has the same brilliancy, 
 but he also possesses dignity and seriousness. His next 
 play may contain authority. That is the direction of his 
 growth. 
 
164 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 III 
 
 William Gillette is another American dramatist who is 
 master of the well-made play — a species that involves 
 the cardboard characteristics used with reticence. He was 
 born in Hartford, Conn., on July 24, 1855,^ his family lineage 
 comprising many noted names. His father was at one time 
 United States Senator and a man of keen intellect; among 
 his relatives he counts Henry Ward Beecher and Charles 
 Dudley Warner. Young Gillette's education was carefully 
 conducted. It seems that as far back as nursery days, the 
 boy owned his miniature theatre, and was quick in his me- 
 chanical inventions. Thus equipped, Gillette, as early as 
 1877, had received a certain amount of theatrical training. 
 
 It is the primary object of every dramatist to amuse an 
 audience. It is the primary object of every audience to seek 
 amusement. But there are standards of pleasure as there 
 are standards of morality, and we have to question our right 
 to enjoy, as we question our right to live. Amusement 
 varies with the type of play, and this type varies with the 
 grade of playhouse. 
 
 Now, it is the primary object of William Gillette to amuse, 
 and every audience that he draws is given healthy amuse^ 
 ment. His standard of pleasure is simple: to hold the 
 attention by appealing to a childlike thirst in all of us for 
 a story and for excitement. His types of play are so varied 
 that we find different pleasure in "The Private Secretary" 
 from that in "Secret Service." Only once did Mr. Gillette 
 approach a problem; that was in "The Admirable Crichton" 
 which J. M. Barrie wrote. As a dramatist himself, Mr. 
 
 ^ The Green Room Book states 1856. He was educated at Yale 
 and Harvard, and the Massachusetts Fine Arts Institute. He made 
 his first appearance as an actor in 1875. In 1881, he wrote "The 
 Professor." 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 165 
 
 Gillette has never had any other purpose than to amuse; and he 
 has reached his effects through farce and melodrama. These 
 two elements have been raised to the highest grade through 
 superlative workmanship; they have been found appropriate 
 for the best audiences because of the stage management 
 and the peculiarly individualistic acting of Mr. Gillette. 
 "Sherlock Holmes" (1899) is example of a rousing melo- 
 drama, constructed in harmony with his method of acting. 
 
 Joseph Jefferson once said that he had no set ambition 
 to uplift the stage, and in consequence his memory is sweet 
 rather than invigorating. William Gillette has claimed 
 that he cares nothing for critical theories; that when he 
 has reached the heart of the masses, he knows he is right. 
 He does not seek to prove any problem. But as a dramatist, 
 he has been able to demonstrate that neither farce nor 
 melodrama needs to sacrifice the essential qualities of 
 humanity. 
 
 In " The Private Secretary " there is a lovable atmosphere 
 surrounding the diffident minister, no matter how ridicu- 
 lous the positions in which he is placed. Throughout " Sher- 
 lock Holmes," the great detective and Dr. Watson are 
 forceful characters, apart from the situations of force through 
 which they make their appeal. There is no doubt in my 
 mind as to how much of this is due to William Gillette, 
 the actor. These roles, which have made his stage career, 
 have themselves been made by his method of acting — tense, 
 mostly silent, persistently dominant, and, as Norman Hap- 
 good once wrote, deeply theatrical and stealthy. Upon 
 the stage he is quiet, slow, dignified; his style is one of 
 nervous repression, of dry humor that is incisive and subtle. 
 Such slowness, in the midst of rapid action, of tense situ- 
 ation, is peculiar to this actor alone. 
 
 Mr. Gillette has written many plays since he began his 
 career as dramatist in 188L There were divers failures 
 
166 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 between successes; his last indiscretion — "Electricity" 
 (1910) — aiming to be a vehicle for so slight an actress as 
 Marie Doro, was totally lacking in brilliancy or in deftness 
 of workmanship; it was nothing more nor less than a card- 
 board play of the commercial type. 
 
 With the aid of Mrs. F. H. Burnett, beginning as Thomas 
 began, he wrote "Esmeralda" in 1881;^ he adapted "Digby's 
 Secretary" from the German (1884), and "She" from Rider 
 Haggard's novel (1887). From the French and German 
 he took many situations. But he could so transmute ideas 
 as to make "Because She Loved Him So" (1899) and "Sher- 
 lock Holmes" essentially his own, even though the former 
 was taken from the French, and the latter from Sir Conan 
 Doyle's stories. Some say even that " The Private Secretary " 
 lurks on the German stage. As examples of his own origi- 
 nality, therefore, we have to turn to " Held by the Enemy " 
 (1886), "Too Much Johnson" (1894), "Secret Service" 
 (1896), and "Clarice" (1905). 
 
 There is no system in Gillette, the dramatist; in this re- 
 spect he is much more difficult to characterize than as an 
 actor. For if we say that his dramas represent "well-made" 
 plays, we attribute to them an artificiality which is usually 
 attributable to Scribe. Were I to measure the dramatist 
 by " The Private Secretary," I should claim that while it was 
 loosely strung and faithfully modelled along conventional lines 
 of farce, at least it was excellently illustrative of the genre. 
 Were I to measure him by " Held by the Enemy," I should 
 call it typical melodrama, which had just failed in its aim for 
 consistency and truth, even though it foreshadowed a better 
 
 1 Among other plays by Mr. Gillette, may be mentioned "A 
 Legal Wreck" (1888); "All the Comforts of Home" (1890, from 
 the German); "Mr. WiUdnson's Widows" (1891); "Settled Out 
 of Court" (1892, from the French); "Ninety Days" (1893). He 
 also wrote a one-act piece, "The Painful Predicament of Sherlock 
 Holmes" (1905). 
 
Photo, by Frank IFarner 
 
 William Gillette 
 
THOMAS AND GILLETTE 167 
 
 drama and reflected in the war correspondent something 
 of the "Private Secretary." "Secret Service" has all the 
 tone and color of Southern feeling during the Civil War; 
 atmospherically it holds all the stress and strain. South- 
 erners, treasuring memories of the sectional struggle, have 
 succumbed to its appeal. Mr. Heme's "Griffith Davenport" 
 alone can be compared with it; by its side, Bronson How- 
 ard's "Shenandoah" is stagey. 
 
 In these sophisticated days, audiences are looking for 
 motives, for powerful scenes, for emotional psychology. 
 From the motive standpoint, Mr. Gillette might have been 
 led to write a play of purpose, after appearing in "The 
 Admirable Crichton" — one of the most delightful of 
 speculative satires. But he was content to amuse himself 
 with the character of the Butler, a role which fitted exactly 
 into the eccentricities of Mr. Gillette, the actor. Once 
 he allowed himself to stretch beyond his limitations, and 
 in his own adaptation of Bernstein's "Samson," he entered 
 the realm of emotion. But he is distinctively unemotional. 
 Even in simple love scenes, such as one finds in "Secret 
 Service" and in "Clarice," he makes appeal through the 
 sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness 
 of outward detail, rather than through romantic attitude 
 and heart fervor. 
 
 It has gone against the grain for Mr. Gillette to be purpose- 
 ful; one would think that this might lead to his being pro- 
 Hfic. But Mr. Gillette is the most cautious of dramatists. 
 Fundamentally, he is right regarding his belief that audiences 
 wish to be amused. Life has enough worries without going 
 to the theatre to be worried. Therefore, he turns on green 
 Hghts in "Sherlock Holmes" — the same green lights that 
 illuminate the page of "Ragged Dick" — and people who 
 have patronized Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" and "Rosmers- 
 holm," sit enthralled. He dramatizes a cigar in "Secret 
 
168 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Service" and in "Sherlock Holmes/' using it also to effect 
 in Barrie's "The Admirable Crichton." As a dramatist, 
 Mr. Gillette has done much to prove the legitimacy of 
 melodrama; he has demonstrated that violence alone in art 
 separates Broadway from the Bowery. 
 
 Mr. Gillette and Mr. Thomas are the only ones of our 
 living dramatists who have successfully demonstrated that 
 the cardboard play does not have to be shallow; that it is, 
 in fact, a virtue when its organism is understood and is not 
 over-worked. For no matter how subtle an idea, the play 
 is a concrete thing. 
 
 The following plays by William Gillette, in order of appearance, 
 have been issued by Samuel French in French's ''Standard Library 
 Edition of Plays": "Held by the Enemy," "Secret Service," "Too 
 Much Johnson." " Electricity " was published in The Drama for No- 
 vember, 1913, preceded by an essay on Gillette's work by Professor 
 Richard Burton. 
 
 "Secret Service" is included in A. H. Quinn's "Representative 
 American Plays," and in synopsis is issued in J. A. Pierce's "The 
 Masterpieces of Modern Drama." 
 
 A most valuable contribution to the literature of the stage is 
 Mr. Gillette's paper on "The Illusion of the First Time in Acting," 
 introduced with a brilliant foreword by Mr, George Arliss, and 
 both published by the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University. 
 Mr. Gillette is represented in Clark's "The British and American 
 Drama of To-day." 
 
 The following plays by Augustus Thomas, each prefaced by the 
 author, have been issued in Samuel French's "Standard Liljrary 
 Edition," given in the order of their publication: "The Witching 
 Hour," "In Mizzoura," "Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots," "Oliver Gold- 
 smith," "The Harvest Moon," "The Other Girl," "The Earl of 
 Pawtucket," "The Capitol." "As a Man Thinks" was published 
 in 1911 by Duffield & Co. 
 
 For other separate issues of Mr. Thomas's plays, see "The Witch- 
 ing Hour," in Dickinson's "Chief Contemporary Dramatists," 
 and in A. H. Quinn's "Representative American Plays"; this play 
 is likewise given in synopsis in "The Masterpieces of Modern 
 Drama," edited by J. A. Pierce. "In Mizzoura" is included in 
 Vol. Ill of "Representative Dramas by American Dramatists," 
 edited by M. J. Moses. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 CONCERNING CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 
 
 There are three important elements involved in the writ- 
 ing of a play: the sense of situation, the sense of character- 
 ization, and the sense of dialogue. If regarded in the light 
 of recent stagecraft, it will be seen that no matter what 
 the type of play may be, no matter what the problem of the 
 play may be, the infinite ramifications found in a perfectly 
 constructed drama are usually gathered together under 
 these three fundamental heads. Our American dramatist 
 has to a very commendable and remarkable degree mastered 
 within recent years two of these characteristics. Living 
 in an atmosphere where situation dominates every corner 
 of our national existence, it is not strange that his eye should 
 be trained to catch the essentials of the moment. This quick- 
 ness on his part is due not only to inherited tendencies, but 
 to training as well. 
 
 Moreover, being particularly keen as to the how and the 
 ivherefore, rather than the why, the American is prone to draw 
 from national existence that which he asks for, and to re- 
 ceive answer from his fellows according to the value, the 
 force of the question he puts. This modus operandi con- 
 stitutes the distinct school of training in which our American 
 playwright has thus far been educated. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment the statement made before, 
 that among our younger men who are essaying the dramatic 
 form as a means of expression, the larger number have been 
 
170 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 at some period of their careers engaged in newspaper report- 
 ing. What bearing has this fact upon their workmanship? 
 First, it has required of the reporter, who is after daily oc- 
 currences, to grasp the essential points in a story, to make 
 use only of those factors which will picturesquely represent 
 in a rapid fashion the progress of a tragedy or the narration 
 of a situation. The reporter is furthermore required to sense 
 this situation with his eye; his style must be shaped so as 
 to depict that process of visual motion. Color and action 
 are his goal. The error of his way lies in his absolute ignor- 
 ing of the logical sequence of events on one hand, and in his 
 failure to recognize the difference between relative and true 
 proportion on the other. Not so very long ago, in conver- 
 sation with Augustus Thomas, I was not surprised to find 
 him confessing that to his newspaper experience he owes 
 his success as a writer of dialogue. To his way of thinking, 
 the value of an interview rests in the dexterity with which 
 the incisive, the irresistible, the compelling question is put. 
 What, after all, is drama but the interchange of just this kind 
 of talk? 
 
 In England, Pinero is one of the prolific writers of plays. 
 I have elsewhere called attention to the fact that had not 
 the dramatic instinct been uppermost, Pinero would have 
 been a novelist; and this same statement is true of Clyde 
 Fitch. The man who has the ability to tell a story, and to 
 tell it in an easy, interesting fashion, possesses the art of 
 the narrator. But if in addition he sees the story in action, 
 he is somehow forced to tell it in accordance with the form 
 which action demands. In other words, whenever the novel- 
 ist introduces into his book an active interchange of person- 
 ality with personality, he is compelled to use the very form 
 that distinguishes drama; that is, dialogue. The playwright 
 translates life wholly in terms of action, in terms of con- 
 versation, in terms of situation. His idea must almost 
 
^pWiWii^^^i^s»^WiXS^'-"^rT~^,r»:?»^^-5w*Ji^%%' 
 
 Photo, by Sarony 
 
 Clyde Fitch 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 171 
 
 invariably be involved closely with the effects of this idea 
 on the characters of his play, and on the development of the 
 plot of his play. This is not saying, in reference to novel 
 writing, that we may cut the dialogue from a book, and piece 
 it together, thus making a play. This method has been the 
 cause of so many failures consequent upon the hasty dram- 
 atization of novels. The essential structure of each form is 
 different, and it is this difference in the framework of these 
 two forms of art that made Arthur Wing Pinero in London 
 and Clyde Fitch in New York, dramatists rather than novel- 
 ists. 
 
 The latter was comparatively a young man at the time 
 of his death, yet the body of his work — which never showed 
 abatement in its increasing proportions — is so large as to 
 overcloud by its very profuseness the pleasing qualities 
 which it assuredly has.^ The gift of writing dialogue easily, 
 
 1 Mr. Fitch was bom at Elmira, New York, May'2, 1865; educated 
 at Amherst College; wrote the following plays: "Beau Brummel"* 
 (1890); "Betty's Finish" (1890); "Frederic Lemaitre" (1890); 
 "A Modern Match" (1891, subsequently played as "Marriage"); 
 "Pamela's Prodigy" (1891); "The Masked Ball," from the French 
 (1892); "The Harvest" (1893, which play, in one act, was pre- 
 sented by the Society of Arts and Letters) [the plot was afterwards 
 used in "The Moth and the Flame"]; "A Shattered Idol," from 
 the French (1893); "The American Duchess," from the French 
 (1893); "The Social Swim" (1893); "Mrs. Grundy, Jun.," from 
 the French (1894); "His Grace de Grammont" (1894); "April 
 Weather" (1894); "Mistress Betty" (1895, subsequently revised 
 and produced in 1905 as "The Toast of the Town"t); "Gos- 
 sip," with Leo Ditrichstein (1895); "Bohemia," from the French 
 (1896); "The Liar," from the French (1896); "A Superfluous 
 Husband," with Leo Ditrichstein (1897); "Nathan Hale"* (1898); 
 "The Moth and the Flame" (1898); "The Head of the Family," 
 from the German, with Leo Ditrichstein (1898); "The Cowboy 
 and the Lady" (1899); "Barbara Frietchie"* (1899); "Sapho," 
 from the French (1900); "The Climbers "f (1900); ."Captain Jinks 
 of the Horse Marines"* (1901); "Lover's Lane" (1901); "The 
 Last of the Dandies" (1901); "The Way of the World" (1901); 
 "The Girl and the Judge" (1901); "The Marriage Game," from 
 
172 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the excellent distinction of being endowed with a prolific, 
 inventive talent, are sometimes dangerous, even though 
 they may be fortunate qualities to own. If the dramatist 
 working at high speed would only take time to realize that 
 his rapidity of execution is due solely to his employment 
 of only two out of the three elements underlying all drama, 
 the net result of his product would be of more permanent 
 value, because he would then become aware of the fact that 
 he is not making full use of the third element. The idea in a 
 drama is the vital spot in its construction. 
 
 From the time that Mr. Fitch graduated from Amherst 
 College, he was actively engaged with his pen, beginning 
 by writing lighter verse, and also by working out some prose 
 sketches which cannot be termed fiction in the true sense of 
 the word. "The Knighting of the Twins, and Ten Other 
 Tales" (1891),^ is now little known though it contains most 
 charming delineations of child life. To the student of Mr. 
 
 the French (1901); "The Stubbornness of Geraldine"t (1902); 
 "The Girl with the Green Eyes"t (1902); "The Frisky Mrs. 
 Johnson," from the French (1903); "The Bird in the Cage" (1903); 
 "Algy" (1903); "Her Own Way"t (1903); "Glad of It" (1903); 
 "Major Andre" (1903); "The Coronet of a Duchess" (1904); 
 "Granny" (1904); "Cousin Billy" (1904); "The Woman in the 
 Case" (1904); "Her Great Match" (1905); "Wolfville" (1905); 
 "The Girl Who Has Everything" (1906); "Toddles," from the 
 French (1906); "The House of Mirth," with Mrs. Wharton (1908); 
 "The Truth" (1906); "The Straight Road" (1906); "Her Sister" 
 (1907); "The Blue Mouse," adapted from the German (1908); 
 "Girls" (1908); "A Happy Marriage" (1909); "The Bachelor" 
 (1909); "The City" (1910). Mr. Fitch died at Chalons-sur-Marne, 
 September 4, 1909. A gossipy account of "The Clyde Fitch I 
 Knew" has been published by Archie Bell. Its chief excellence lies 
 in a few flashes of Mr. Fitch's vivacious personality and in the 
 chronology of his work. 
 
 The plays marked thus (*) have been published; those marked 
 thus (t) belong to an excellent inexpensive series of Mr. Fitch's 
 plays which the Macmillan Company issued. 
 1 Republished (1911). 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 173 
 
 Fitch's dramas they suggest those main characteristics of his 
 own attitude toward Hfe and the conditions of life which 
 dominated most of his later stage work. For by temperament 
 Mr. Fitch was a sentimentalist, and because of temperament 
 he viewed the details of environment in their bearing upon 
 feeling. 
 
 Mr. Fitch was, to a certain degree, also a realist, if by 
 realism we mean the handling of everyday occurrences and 
 of the famihar natural problems of existence; but his real- 
 istic data was usually subjected to a high light of what at 
 one moment we might term German romanticism and at 
 another moment French sentimentalism. Much as quite 
 a few of his plays have been discussed from the standpoint of 
 their feminine suggestiveness and from the standpoint of 
 their feminine sensuous interests, in point of morality Mr. 
 Fitch was wholly conventional. His cleverness in over- 
 coming this conventional tendency rested on his theatrical 
 employment of the unusual. In other words, in point of 
 visual sense, Mr. Fitch's observation of little things was 
 about as sane as that of any other living dramatist, his fault 
 being that he failed to bring his minute observation in re- 
 lation with any large, vital, or sustained idea. 
 
 In 1897, Mr. Fitch published a little volume entitled " The 
 Smart Set : Correspondence & Conversations." It is an- 
 other example of the insistent dramatist who obtrudes himself 
 over and above the story-teller in the writing of a book. It 
 contains the attitude of the dialogue, and so we may claim 
 that Mr. Fitch was a born playwright, in the double sense 
 that in expressing himself he perforce had to use dialogue, 
 and in viewing life he invariably felt compelled to estimate 
 it in terms of situation. His undoing was that he lacked 
 the consuming idea. 
 
 As far as dramatic belief is concerned, Mr. Fitch was 
 thoroughly sincere. He lived up to his convictions as to 
 
174 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 what drama should be in general, and he expressed his con- 
 victions in the following terms : 
 
 " I feel myself very strongly the particular value — a 
 value which, rightly or wrongly, I can't help feeling inesti- 
 mable — in a modern play, of reflecting absolutely and truth- 
 fully the hfe and environment about us; every class, every 
 kind, every emotion, every motive, every occupation, every 
 business, every idleness! Never was life so varied, so com- 
 plex. . . . Take what strikes you most, in the hope it will 
 interest others; take what suits you most to do — what 
 perhaps you can do best, and then do it better. Be truthful, 
 and then nothing can be too big, nothing should be too 
 small, so long as it is here and there. ... If you inculcate an 
 idea in your play, so much the better for your play and for 
 you and for your audience. In fact, there is small hope for 
 your play as a play, if you have not some idea in it, some- 
 where and somehow, even if it is hidden. It is sometimes 
 better for you if it is hidden, but it must of course be integral. 
 . . . One should write what one sees, but observe under 
 the surface. It is a mistake to look at the reflection of the 
 sky in the water of theatrical convention; instead, look up 
 and into the sky of real life itself." 
 
 This quotation contains the essence of Mr. Fitch's attitude 
 toward life. It shows him prone to place idea throughout 
 his work in a secondary position, and he thus unconsciously 
 became a very true critic of himself. For he was given to 
 infuse into his picturesque entertainments some small sem- 
 blance of ideas, which, while not seemingly vital, were so 
 commonplace as to have intimate connection with the human 
 side of his audiences. " The Climbers," " The Girl with the 
 Green Eyes," "The Girl and the Judge," "Her Own Way," 
 — each of these contains an element of live meaning, 
 apart from the mere interest of story or attractiveness 
 of scene; and this very presence of a suggestion of the 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 175 
 
 vital spark in drama is what made one most regretful re- 
 garding Mr. Fitch as a dramatist. For he had that within 
 him, out of which worthy dramatic literature might have 
 been evolved. 
 
 The general impression was that he did not make good, 
 for the very reason that his ideas never seemed to arrive. 
 That he was not consciously imitative of foreign models is 
 observable by the fact that whenever he attempted to ab- 
 sorb foreign situations, whenever he adapted French pieces, 
 such as "Sapho," those qualities for which he might be 
 justly praised were either corrupted or wholly absent from 
 the scene. But Mr. Fitch was not indifferent to foreign 
 activity, especially as manifest in the modern French dramas. 
 Curiously, he welcomed in them just those large and sig- 
 nificant characteristics which, had he possessed them, would 
 have placed him in the front ranks of the progressive dra- 
 matic movement. He once said: "No one at the present 
 moment is getting the essence of his environment in thought, 
 word, and deed, as Hervieu, Lavedan, Donnay, Capus: 
 Capus with the idea for the basic principle, the idea serious; 
 Lavedan and Donnay, the idea social; Capus all sorts of 
 ideas together, any old idea so long as it is always life — 
 especially the life superficial, with the undercurrent really 
 kept under." 
 
 Our American dramatist has, during the past decade, 
 developed within himself a tremendous sense of locality. This 
 is very natural, considering his keenness of observation. 
 But he has not yet sufficiently balanced this observation 
 with an intellectual perspective of those characteristics which 
 go to make the nation. We could more readily describe 
 Mr. Fitch by saying that he was a typical New York dram- 
 atist, than a typical American dramatist; for the conventions 
 running through his plays are those of a society which is 
 common to New York City. Even in his scenic indications. 
 
176 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 he preferred to appeal to the local sense of New Yorkers. His 
 " Major Andre," played at the Savoy Theatre, was supposed 
 to have taken place in an old colonial residence situated 
 exactly on the spot occupied by the Savoy Theatre itself. 
 His " Glad of It" had one act behind the scenes of the Savoy 
 Theatre. His " Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" opened 
 on the docks of the Cunard Steamship Company. The last 
 two acts of " The Truth " were laid in a Harlem flat. " Girls " 
 was filled with allusions to apartment life in New York, which 
 only New Yorkers could fully appreciate. 
 
 This local sense is most likely to be encouraged in those 
 dramatists who have gained experience through newspaper 
 reporting. Mr. Thomas confesses that when he began to 
 write for the stage, he mentally divided the country into 
 various sections for his own purposes. He did this by cen- 
 tring his attention upon the social position women occupied 
 in the North, South, East, and West, and he states the case 
 thus : " In the South the unwritten law and the spotlessness 
 of a woman's reputation are the first items, as they are the 
 last. In the middle West they are not so punctilious; and 
 in the far West, where the scarcity of the article raises its 
 price, a woman's position is not prohibitive, if, after ac- 
 cepting a man's name and his protection, she runs straight 
 and is true. In the North we have commenced to accept the 
 English idea of compensation and consideration for services 
 to the husband where a wife has been seduced." Whether 
 Mr. Thomas actually did regard the country from this 
 standpoint must be supported by careful examination of 
 his plays, but we believe that this statement of his is more 
 closely applicable to Mr. Fitch's own consideration of the 
 sex problem. His plays were avowedly romantic, their 
 psychology mostly commonplace and healthy. It was dis- 
 tinctively the psychology of the story-teller, and in in- 
 stances was not only cleverly, but realistically, portrayed. 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 177 
 
 For instance, ''The Girl with the Green Eyes" is a close, 
 persistent analysis of jealousy. 
 
 Mr. Fitch attempted nearly every form of drama. His 
 character studies, such as those typified by " Beau Brummel" 
 — written in conjunction with Mr. Mansfield, — " Frederic 
 Lemaitre," and "His Grace de Grammont," reveal a 
 delicacy and deftness which, although lacking in virility, 
 constitute, none the less, miniatures of a notable order. He 
 attempted war drama in his "Nathan Hale" and "Barbara 
 Frietchie," but they may be described as war dramas with 
 the war left out. He wrote straight comedies as Vv ell as farces ; 
 and in the realm of melodrama, such a piece as " The Woman 
 in the Case" might be taken as a typical example. 
 
 The interest of Mr. Fitch usually centred upon the femi- 
 nine side of his play. No writer for the stage had a keener 
 sense of changing styles and foibles than he. Oftentimes his 
 weakness lay in his too great dependence upon the novelty 
 or familiarity of detail. He wrote so many pieces with these 
 characteristics, that we were never startled by Mr. Fitch's 
 inventive powers. Before going to see a new piece, we were 
 almost sure of finding certain familiar features which belonged 
 to no one else but him. Our curiosity was piqued, but 
 so distinctly did we imagine that we knew the flavor of Mr. 
 Fitch's atmosphere, that unless he gave us that flavor we 
 left the theatre disappointed. We can say of " The Climbers," 
 for example, that through the customary method Mr. Fitch 
 employed, his public was willing to find amusement in the 
 first act of a play which opened in a house of mourning a 
 short while after the burial service had been performed. 
 In " The Stubbornness of Geraldine," which in point of love 
 interest is as typically German as "Her Great Match," 
 the cleverness of representing the deck of one of our large 
 ocean liners was legitimately entertaining. 
 
 But the Fitch flavor, which was so familiar to theatre- 
 
178 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 goers, and which might almost be said to have become 
 crystaUized, created in the forty or fifty plays, which are to 
 his credit, a level of cleverness above which very few of the 
 pieces stand out. Nearly all of his plays bore a close relation- 
 ship, one with the other. His heroines were mostly of the 
 same romantic type, his heroes had the same polished daring. 
 It is a mistaken idea that there are but few ways in drama 
 of creating humor. We may no doubt reduce an analysis 
 of humor to a certain number of elements, but the combi- 
 nations of those elements are infinite. The fault with Mr. 
 Fitch's humor rested in the fact that he was prone to use 
 the same combinations over and over again. I would say 
 of him that his grasp of the life and manners of New York, 
 from earliest times, was more intimate than that possessed 
 by any other dramatist or writer of the day. Because of 
 this grasp, he was able to play with details, to contrast the 
 past with the present, to create his humor by means of this 
 balance of the past with the present. Take, for example, 
 "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines." The references to 
 Hoboken made by Madame Trentoni are put from the stand- 
 point of those early times, rather than from the standpoint 
 of to-day. Should one read the diaries of Tyrone Power, 
 the grandfather of the present actor of that name, he would 
 find the same characteristic innuendoes that sound humor- 
 ous to us to-day, simply because they — while not wholly 
 true of the Hoboken of the present — have, nevertheless, an 
 element of truth in them. 
 
 Mr. Fitch created humor, likewise, by a method of com- 
 paring material advance. When Madame Trentoni comes 
 down the gang-plank and meets the New York newspaper 
 reporters, she is enthusiastic about the quickness of the 
 trip over — something like fourteen days — and the reporters 
 boast that in time to come they will even be able to make 
 it in ten days. In view of the Lusitania, one cannot help 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 179 
 
 but smile! And this was the deftness of Mr. Fitch at full 
 play. Take away from him those characteristics that were 
 known as the Fitch qualities, and which might be termed 
 superficial qualities if they were not truthful reproductions 
 — however they might be superficial — and the remaining 
 chtiracteristics would indicate his limitations. 
 
 The comedy of manners is not only a legitimate form of 
 dramatic art, but it is also one of the hardest forms to make 
 vital. "The School for Scandal" has persisted from gener- 
 ation to generation, not because of its story, not because 
 of its reflection of eighteenth century habits and customs, 
 not because of its idea, which is hardly noteworthy, but 
 because of its humanity underlying the superficial, a human- 
 ity which is eternal, whether in powder and patches, in hoop- 
 skirts, or in the fashions of the present. There is a spontaneous 
 flow of humor in this drama, dependent upon character, 
 rather than upon situation or local reference. In fact, an 
 over-abundance of local reference would take the sympa- 
 thetic appeal away from a comedy after the age had passed. 
 
 Moreover, an over-emphasis of the local, even at close 
 range, is detrimental to the understanding of a piece, out- 
 side that particular locality. Local characteristics, even 
 national characteristics are only useful, in so far as they 
 help to round out the character- value of the play. The 
 Americanism in "The Lion and the Mouse" was its ruin- 
 ation in England. The Western allusions in George Ade's 
 "The College Widow," which was presented in London, 
 hastened its return home. It is to be remarked that Mr. 
 Fitch successfully produced abroad only those plays of his 
 that were more French in flavor than American. "The 
 Cowboy and the Lady" was only fairly received. But "The 
 Truth" has not only brought success to Marie Tempest; 
 because of its foreign atmosphere, it has won its way through- 
 out the Continent. Americans never quite realized how 
 
180 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 much of a reputation Mr. Fitch had abroad. His last trip 
 to Europe was a veritable sweep of the theatrical field. 
 London had just received favorably "The Woman in the 
 Case," and other managers were clamoring for his pieces, 
 no matter how old they were. Sir Charles Wyndham was 
 watching " The Blue Mouse," Belasco was seeking a contract 
 with him, and every one was envious of the Shuberts who 
 had secured the rights to " The City," that play which was 
 to prove the last forceful flash of the maturing Mr. Fitch. 
 
 The list of plays I have compiled will indicate some of 
 the activity of Mr. Fitch. It will show that in point of 
 variety, if not in^ point of solidity, he was closely akin to 
 Mr. Pinero, without that deep interest in the psychology 
 of character which marks the English playwright. It might 
 almost be said that the majority of his plays were but vari- 
 ations of the same theme. His technique was sometimes 
 skilful, at other times it was hasty and crude; at its best 
 it was more polished than vigorous. In the matter of dram- 
 atization, one might well imagine why Mr. Fitch was un- 
 successful in turning Alfred Henry Lewis's "Wolfville 
 Stories" into a Western play. But it is less evident, except 
 in the inherent defects that beset the dramatization of any 
 novel, why it was that "The House of Mirth," a distinct- 
 ively New York story of the smart-set, written by Mrs. 
 Wharton, should have missed the mark. 
 
 One final characteristic of Mr. Fitch needs to be noted, 
 and it becomes distinctive if the reader is at all familiar 
 with the personalities involved. Mr. Fitch nearly always 
 wrote his plays with a definite actress in view. The con- 
 sequence is that his characters almost invariably partook 
 of the personality of their model. In "The Truth" and in 
 " The Girl with the Green Eyes," the heroines are markedly 
 like the late Clara Bloodgood. In "The Stubbornness of 
 Geraldine," the heroine is closely related to Mary Manner- 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 181 
 
 ing. It Is hard to find a better portrait of Miss Barrymore 
 than in "Captain Jinks." "Her Own Way" is identified 
 with Maxine Elliott, and "Barbara Frietchie" is synony- 
 mous with Julia Marlowe. 
 
 Thus, after noting the chief plays to Mr. Fitch's credit, 
 we return to the original thesis, which dealt with the three 
 underlying factors in drama. Our consideration has un- 
 doubtedly shown that what Mr. Fitch needed most was the 
 accentuation of the element of idea, of vital idea. By the 
 cultivating of this, he would perforce have been obliged 
 to work less rapidly. But Mr. Fitch was never careless, 
 even in his rapidity. Quick workmanship was part of his 
 nature; he was quick to observe and quick to appreciate. 
 His humor was ever present, and he dramatized everything 
 that came within his vision. To his sense of character, his 
 sense of situation, and his sense of dialogue, Mr. Fitch added 
 a fourth sense distinctively his own — that of New York 
 locality. His position in American drama is one which has 
 afforded a large amount of healthy enjoyment; and to have 
 done this is to have done a great deal. In the matter of con- 
 struction, his plays that have been published will serve the 
 dramatic student as excellent examples of external stage- 
 craft. They will illustrate for him in what manner the 
 observation of familiar detail may be made use of, theatri- 
 cally; they will illustrate in what way the interest of an 
 audience may be held through an ordinary, though none 
 the less picturesque, story .^ 
 
 1 The following references will prove suggestive: Book Buyer, 
 17:118 (E. F. Coward); Book Buyer, 16:323 (E. A. Dithmar); 
 Critic, 38:225 (J. R. Towse). 
 
 " Barbara Frietchie " : Literature, 5:411; Pub. Opin., 27:563; Harp. 
 W., 43:1096 (J. Corbin); Lit. W., 30:361 (J. D. Barry); B'kman, 
 10:317 (N. Hapgood); Critic, 35:1143 (J. R. Towse). 
 
 " Cowboy and the Lady ": AthancBum, '99, 1:731; Sat, Bev.f 87;718 
 (M, Beerbohm), 
 
182 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Clyde Fitch has been dead over a year (1911). Had he lived 
 much beyond forty-five, we should have seen a certain 
 transformation in his technique, and a more pronounced 
 purpose in his plots; for he was becoming deeply conscious 
 of the fundamental truths of life, and he was eager to put 
 strength into his dialogue in order to offset the delicacy 
 and feminine flashes which the public always considered 
 purely Fitchean. "The City" was his first, as it proved 
 to be his last, effort in that direction. 
 
 Mr. Fitch often claimed that he was always measured in 
 the public press by stereotyped phrases which clung to him 
 because his manner was ever the same. He deplored the 
 fact that the newspapers failed to give him credit for his 
 close study of character, such as one finds in " The Girl with 
 the Green Eyes" and in "The Truth." Only after he was 
 dead did the critics begin to realize the incommunicable 
 flavor permeating' his dramas. This flavor came partly 
 from a close understanding of New York life, whether of the 
 past or of the present — in " Captain Jinks of the Horse 
 Marines" or in "Girls." But it was in larger share the 
 flavor of personality. No degree of profundity could ever 
 have limited Clyde Fitch's enthusiasm while writing or 
 rehearsing; he w^as quick in mind and in execution, and 
 sometimes his very deftness and easy brilliancy were his 
 undoing. He realized this; he tried his best to push back 
 the numberless contracts and offers which claimed his 
 time. 
 
 , He took his success as naively as a boy, but he was plan- 
 ning to place more attention upon the message than he had 
 
 "Head of the Family": 11. Am., 24:492; Harp. W., 42:1273 (J. 
 Corbin). 
 
 "Moth and the Flame": Critic, n. s., 29:271. 
 
 "Nathan Hale": Harp.W., 43:35; J5'^-man, 8:528 (N.Hapgood); 
 Cntic, 34:142; Harp. W., 43:213 (J. Corbin). 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 183 
 
 heretofore done. This may later have handicapped him, 
 for passages of an ethical nature in "A Happy Marriage" 
 retarded the action of the piece. 
 
 After all, the sum total of his work cannot be rejected 
 from the body of dramatic literature; his very style is dis- 
 tinctive and is a measure of the man's outlook upon life. 
 He told his story simply, directly, tenderly and humorously. 
 Only when he resorted to theatrical trickery did his work 
 become uneven; and this unevenness accentuated the rich 
 humanity and the kindly observation of his normal pla^^s. 
 One cannot call "The Stubbornness of Geraldine" a great 
 drama, but it has a certain lively charm that no other play- 
 wright seems able to embody in a play. The temptation 
 is to call such sentiment commonplace. "Granny" was 
 full of it; so was "The Girl Who Has Everything." Seeing 
 these plays in succession, the theatre-goer would criticise 
 their apparent resemblance. But an analysis would in- 
 evitably lead to the conclusion that the resemblance lay 
 in the same personality behind them, and not in any monot- 
 ony of detail. 
 
 Clyde Fitch was extravagant in his invention; he was 
 careless in throwing a whole problem away w^ithin the limits 
 of a line of dialogue. Such extravagance was indicative of 
 his natural interest in all things bearing on human relation- 
 ships. He brought the whole of life within the compass of 
 home, and he gained his audiences by a seeming comrade- 
 ship which made them feel that his windows overlooked 
 the very housetops with which they themselves were famil- 
 iar. He knew how to use the reporter's method; one could 
 see this in "The Woman in the Case," and in "The City." 
 But his usual method was literary, not journalistic; it 
 was narrative in direct fashion, and not impressionistic. 
 And because he knew his New York so well, he could afford 
 to throw out those sparks of wit and humor which tran- 
 
184 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 scend a town, and are common to all provincial attitudes 
 toward life. If he was cynical, it was friendly banter; he 
 was never bitter. Yet looking deeper into the printed page 
 of his published plays, it is apparent that he had had quite 
 enough of society at the time of his death; that the city 
 had made such demands upon his physical strength as to 
 turn his desire toward the quietness of country life. There, 
 he would have started the larger work of a different kind 
 from that characterizing his long list of popular plays. 
 Whether he would have succeeded as well is a matter for 
 futile speculation. 
 
 He has been dead over a year, and he is missed; there is 
 no one to take his place. A remark was once made by Thomas 
 A. Edison to the effect that he hoped some day to have the 
 time at his disposal for making a real contribution to science. 
 But it is not easy to believe that anything he may do will 
 ever surpass his actual genius in hitching his wagon to a 
 star; in other words, in attaching a high imagination to 
 practical conditions. So was it with Clyde Fitch. His 
 personality is part of the work he did, and New York's 
 duty is clearly defined, for he is in a sense the city's play- 
 wright. America has not yet understood what honor is 
 due to such literary achievement. Its immediate reward 
 was in the crowds that constituted a Fitch following for 
 some fifty plays, mostl}^ popular in their long " runs." Still, 
 there is more to do, for now that he is dead, we know that 
 something rare is taken from the theatre — something 
 with a distinct literary value — light, no doubt, airy, and 
 sometimes frothy, but none the less life with which we are 
 all familiar. 
 
 There is nothing old-fashioned in Clyde Fitch's attitude 
 or in his workmanship; they will scarcely become out-of- 
 date for many a decade. There are other artists much 
 stronger, with theories of technique much more original. But 
 
CLYDE FITCH AND THE LOCAL SENSE 185 
 
 Clyde Fitch's originality is to be found in his close con- 
 nection with the material he used. His audiences were given 
 much more of himself than they ever knew. And that is 
 why they will never find any other plays quite like 
 his. 
 
 The Memorial Edition of plays by Clyde Fitch, issued by Little 
 Brown & Company, and edited by Montrose J. Moses and Vir- 
 ginia Gerson, contains the hitherto unpublished plays, "Lovers' 
 Lane" (1901), ''The Woman in the Case" (1905), and ''The City" 
 (1909). 
 
 Another hitherto unpublished play, "The Moth and the Flame" 
 (1898), is in "Representative Dramas by American Dramatists," 
 Vol. Ill, edited by M. J. Moses. 
 
 "Her Great Match" (1905) is included in A. H. Quinn's "Repre- 
 sentative American Plays." 
 
 "The Truth" is included in Dickinson's "Chief Contemporary 
 Dramatists," and is presented in synopsis in J. A. Pierce's "The 
 Masterpieces of Modern Drama." 
 
 Mr. Fitch is the subject of special study in Clark's "The British 
 and American Drama of To-day." 
 
 BibUographical material on Mr. Fitch and his work is included in 
 "Modern Drama and Opera," Vol. II (The Boston Book Company). 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CONCERNING MELODRAMA 
 
 The use of the term melodrama has undergone many changes, 
 and it is a question whether at the present moment it is 
 not being subjected to another modification or crucial shift- 
 ing of the point of view. Such a bastard form of art has it 
 been regarded by the majority of theatre-goers, that one 
 has lost sight of its origin in the sixteenth century, and of 
 the romantic stock from which it sprang. The term melo- 
 drama or melodramatic, as applied to a play, is popularly 
 looked upon as a sign of condemnation, yet if we consider 
 the essential ingredients for a moment, we will see that the 
 melodrama itself is not the thing to be condemned, but rather 
 the special form in which it is expressed. 
 
 The historical side of the subject has received scant atten- 
 tion from the scholar. While in general we are told that 
 Ottavio Rinuccini toward the end of the sixteenth century 
 invented the term melodrama, from the Greek words meaning 
 melody and action, and while we are given to understand 
 that in its application it related entirely to opera, Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau having written his "Pygmalion" for 
 instrumental music; still a scholar has yet to unravel its 
 development from the intricacies of the romantic period, 
 which swept through Italy and France and thence to Eng- 
 land. It is hardly conceivable that the music written by 
 Beethoven for "Egmont," or by Massenet for "Phedre," 
 should be classed in the same genre as " Nellie, the Beautiful 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 187 
 
 Cloak Model" or "Convict 999;" ^ yet such is the case, and 
 from such a loose application of the term there has arisen 
 a misunderstanding as to the true elements in melodrama. 
 
 Analyzing the relation between music and drama, we note 
 the point from which melodrama might be said to start. 
 Always the highest moments in an opera, the most brilliant 
 moments, are those which involve the characteristic elements 
 of a glaring play. The characters sing longest when they 
 are dying, they boast loudest in the most pronounced arias 
 of the score; their actions are broad and lack subtlety, a 
 subtlety which is dependent more upon the music than upon 
 the play. Possibly it is because the musician has instinctively 
 realized that the moments of greatest music are the moments 
 of greatest human suffering; and undoubtedly the melo- 
 dramatist of to-day has grasped this fact, and is working it for 
 all it is worth. Take away from our operas the orchestration, 
 and the plots will be little more than out and out melodrama. 
 
 The student of the theatre will some day, in dealing with 
 this subject of melodrama, be forced to disentangle its 
 beginnings from the most heightened creations of the roman- 
 tic period. He will not disdain to connect this genre of play- 
 writing with that struggle which went on between the classic 
 spirit and the romantic spirit, and which finally resulted 
 in the victory of the latter, when Victor Hugo, in 1830, 
 published "Hernani." It was the same struggle which had 
 commenced in France when the Academicians, Boileau and 
 Charles Perrault, became so deeply involved in a quarrel 
 resulting in petty innuendoes and personal thrusts. 
 
 Practically the same result was accomplished in England 
 
 1 The methods of advertising melodrama are unique. When 
 ** Convict 999" was first produced, three men in stripes, and chained 
 together, tramped the streets of New York, The managers of 
 "Tony, the Bootblack" sent three boys through certain sections of 
 the city, giving free shines to all holders of tickets for ''the show." 
 
188 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 as Dutton Cook claims was effected in France. For, to 
 quote the latter: "Schlegel, writing early in the century, 
 notes that dramatic poetry in Paris possessed a certain 
 point of contact with the police, and that the restrictions 
 placed upon the leading theatres banished to the minor stages 
 all new and mixed attempts at histrionic entertainment." 
 
 The history of melodrama in England began in 1802, 
 when Holcroft adapted a French manuscript which he called 
 "A Tale of Mystery." And at this early period it is inter- 
 esting to note the popular conception of the origin of the 
 term melodrama, as conceived by the son of Harris, the 
 manager of Covent Garden. He wrote to Frederick Reynolds 
 from Paris regarding the peculiar type of plays which were 
 classed under a name derived from the two words meler 
 and drame} 
 
 Up to the time of the advent of the Dion Boucicault 
 sensationalism, for he may be regarded as one of the first 
 to combine the excess of situation with the excess of stage 
 mechanism, melodrama might be said to have become almost 
 conventional in its adherence to a species of foreign brigand 
 literature. There was not very much desire to accentuate 
 the events of everyday life, but, adhering to the stereotyped 
 romantic passions and situations of the Radcliffe school of 
 novels, the melodramatist of this earlier period wrote more 
 in the tone of the opera librettist than of the dramatist. 
 The history of melodrama in this country, to within recent 
 years, is practically the same as that of England, and the 
 two may be said to have been dependent upon French sources. 
 In the period of 1860, America was inundated with a type 
 of "dime novel" story, which spread from ocean to ocean, 
 affecting literature for growing boys, and likewise afford- 
 ing a new impetus to melodrama. For about this time, 
 
 1 Gr. meloSj song, + drama(t-), < drao, perform. 
 
Photo, by Sarony 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 189 
 
 as we have said before, Mr. Belasco was enjoying such a 
 glaring piece as "The Idiot Boy of the Rocky Mountains;" 
 and when he reached the East, he found that Mr. Daly had 
 made a success with a melodrama of that section, entitled 
 "Under the Gaslight." The type of play such as "The 
 Two Orphans," which is in its essentials nothing but a melo- 
 drama, could not long survive the reaction which in drama 
 was now to take place. There is no doubt that, even as 
 Pinero and Jones were to break from Robertson and Taylor, 
 and realism was to usurp the boards, so melodrama would 
 likewise be affected by this very realism. The ingredients 
 have always been the same, but the objective point of view 
 was obliged to undergo material alteration with the change 
 of conditions. The present-day melodrama, which is better 
 named sensational drama, has been materially affected by 
 those forces which have been detected behind yellow journal- 
 ism. 
 
 Let us get clearly in mind the characteristics marking 
 melodrama. The dominant feature is situation; the broadest 
 results of the very broadest and most elemental emotions. 
 Mr. Walkley has expressed it by saying that there are two 
 sides of a criminal, the outside and the inside, melodrama 
 usually dealing with the former, whereas the novelist would 
 search for the conditions resulting in the existence of the 
 criminal. These two sides are in substance the distinctive 
 difference between present-day melodrama and present- 
 day fiction. 
 
 The old English and French miracle plays had in them all 
 the essentials of this glaring stage type. The manner in 
 which the miracle of "St. Nicholas and the Thieves" w^as 
 presented, the careful delineation of Hellmouth, with the 
 Devil and his demons rushing up and down the aisles of the 
 church, appealed to the same instincts in the mass of medi- 
 seval people, that the broad glorification of good and the met- 
 
190 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 ing of punishment do to the people of to-day. Fitzball, who 
 was considered one of the most productive melodramatists 
 of the early nineteenth century in England, heard Sheridan 
 Knowles proclaim that he considered "Macbeth" one of the 
 finest melodramas he had ever seen; and there is undoubted 
 truth in what he said. Perhaps he asserted this as a defense 
 of his own play, "The Hunchback" — which itself belongs 
 to this class of drama. But even at that early day the term 
 had been so misused and the species had so broadened, freed 
 from the narrow restrictions of the patent theatres of Lon- 
 don, that Douglas Jerrold, in his report before the Parlia- 
 mentary Commission of 1832, appointed to examine into 
 the status of the London theatres, inadvertently invented 
 a new term, which is familiar to us to-day as the legitimate 
 drama, and which he pitted against this other form. Not 
 only did he deplore the over-accentuation of the physical 
 result to the detriment of the mental cause in melodrama, 
 but Macready likewise regarded the sensational with such 
 disfavor that his contracts stipulated he should be given 
 no part partaking of a melodramatic character. 
 
 Up to this time melodrama, which is not only a legitimate 
 type, but also a dominant characteristic of our American 
 life, has run wild. The writer of melodrama has misinter- 
 preted his license, and the lovers of the melodramatic are 
 being sated with a succession of situations and a minimum 
 of plot. One of the most successful playwrights of this type 
 of piece is Owen Davis, the author of "The Confessions of 
 a Wife" — which is distinctive from his other plays by the 
 fact that it calls for no "guns," to use a professional term, — 
 "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model" and "Convict 999." 
 He has declared that a certain reaction is about to take 
 place in this indiscriminate use of situation for situation's 
 sake; that his audiences are now beginning to see the im- 
 probability of so many hairbreadth escapes occurring in 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 191 
 
 the life of any human being within the three hours' traffic 
 of the stage. The pubhc libraries are improving the taste 
 of the pubhc. So that from excess we are forced to return to 
 consistency. 
 
 Only a hairline separates the emotion of Broadway from 
 that of the Bowery. Mr. Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" was 
 nothing more than a "thriller," acted with a certain refine- 
 ment and a certain reserve; which characteristics are usually 
 avoided by the manager of melodrama. Not only has the 
 sensational play taken unto itself a certain formula by which 
 virtue and villainy are expressed, but it likewise requires 
 a diction which is excessive in its accentuation. 
 
 When all is told, therefore, the difference between the 
 legitimate theatre and melodrama lies in this matter of 
 accentuation. Bartley Campbell's "My Partner," Lester 
 Wallack's "Rosedale," "The White Heather," Jones's "The 
 Silver King," "The Ticket-of-Leave Man," C. M. S. McLel- 
 lan's " LeahKleschna," and " The Great Ruby" are accounted 
 melodramas of the old school, containing all the distorted 
 actions and passions of the present type, but differing from 
 the present type, inasmuch as the stories were consistent 
 and the characterizations human. Despite the sensational- 
 ism in Dion Boucicault, the genial Irish atmosphere was 
 dominant, and the heart interest was so romantic as to cover 
 the daring ventures with the gloss of possibility. Now, 
 however, such writers of melodrama as Owen Davis and 
 Theodore Kremer have discarded the intermediate develop- 
 ment between the glaring situations, and are dealing wholly 
 with the situations themselves, one after the other, irrespec- 
 tive of their possibility in life, and with the sole intention 
 of deadening the logical sense of the spectator with sensa- 
 tionalism. 
 
 Mr. Davis is a Harvard graduate, and was drawn into 
 writing such plays as "Tony, the Bootblack" and "Nellie, 
 
192 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the Beautiful Cloak Model" by his association with "The 
 Great Ruby" company. He thought he could write just 
 as clever a story for the stage, and so he began then and 
 there, acting meanwhile, until he gained a footing as one 
 of the principal manufacturers of the sensational play. He 
 recognized the legitimate side of melodrama, he deplored 
 the piling up of catastrophe upon catastrophe, he saw the 
 bathos in the formula which states that the play ends only 
 when every possible calamity has been exhausted. Mr. 
 Davis was what one might call a student of his particular 
 field. He understood his public, which in matter of taste is 
 of the Laura Jean Libbey class. He knew wherein this pub- 
 lic was credulous, — the point of appeal in its sentimental 
 make-up. His audiences would not countenance the regen- 
 eration of a stage bad man; they must have the victory 
 of virtue and the happy ending; the good must be rewarded 
 suddenly, the bad must be punished lingeringly. 
 
 Mr. Davis has now deserted the realm of the sensational 
 for that of the legitimate, but in doing so he has not forgotten 
 the measure of that public to which he used to make appeal. 
 In an interview, he has epitomized the characteristics of 
 melodrama in this manner: 
 
 "On Third Avenue the treatment is different. Instead 
 of avoiding the obvious you must insist upon it first, last 
 and all the time. You must move up the ascending scale of 
 emotions with directness. Your hero must be labeled at 
 his first entrance. Nothing must be left to inference. It 
 is almost indispensable that he knock down the villain in 
 the first two minutes following his entrance. In the same 
 easy way your comedian must get a laugh as he comes on. 
 Instead of having your heroine pursued by some ab- 
 stract thing such as fate, you must have her pursued by a 
 tangible villain bent upon cutting her throat. You must 
 pile catastrophe upon catastrophe, By th(? time the hero 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 193 
 
 throws his protecting arms around her in the last act, she 
 must have narrowly escaped scalping by Indians, been 
 almost drowned in a mill-race, missed death in a train wreck, 
 and been shot at and stabbed by the villain, to say nothing 
 of having passed unscathed through several conflagrations, 
 an earthquake or two, a mine cave-in, or a magazine ex- 
 plosion. The play only ends when you have exhausted 
 every possible calamity, but it ends happily; it must end 
 happily. And the hero must remain the hero, and the vil- 
 lain must die as black as when he first came on. I know, 
 because I have tried. The public has no faith in the regen- 
 eration of the stage bad man. He is there as the symbol of 
 everything that 's bad, and by the fourth act he has com- 
 mitted every crime possible. The audience does n't want 
 him to repent and get away free. He must be killed linger- 
 ingly, if possible. Right must triumph and wrong must be 
 punished. That is one of the fundamental principles of the 
 so-called cheap drama. 
 
 " In that particular the cheap drama is a power for good 
 and a moralizing force of no little value. Our heroics are 
 mock heroics, perhaps, but they have a salutary effect never- 
 theless. The lowly laborer who lives a life of squalor in 
 the back room of a tenement, when he hears the hero declare 
 that he would rather die than steal, may come to think that, 
 after all, this is the sort of morality that suits him too. 
 
 " Speaking only of my own plays, I dare say that I have 
 addressed each season an audience numbering upward of 
 seven million people. I have had eighteen plays on the 
 road at a time, and about ninety in stock. In every one of 
 my pieces there is some wholesome truth, some good moral 
 precept advanced, and yet almost invariably the attitude 
 maintained by the press toward these plays is one of gentle 
 derision. Serious criticism of them is never attempted. The 
 one reason why newspaper men are sent to cover them is to 
 
194 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 poke fun at them the next day. They furnish the basis for 
 funny stories, nothing else. Personally, I don't see any 
 fairness in this. Certain papers which I need not mention 
 make special effort to catch the proletariat by writing down 
 their editorials to the mental level and understanding of the 
 illiterate, prosaic, unlettered, uncultured classes, and then 
 turn right about to another column and assume the superior 
 and high-art tone in discussing the plays which these same 
 people go to see." 
 
 And should we ask Mr. Davis to outline the formula for 
 us succinctly, he would say that his audiences never take 
 things for granted. You must emphasize for them that a 
 certain event is going to happen, that it is happening, and 
 that it has happened; three times each point must be driven 
 home. Humanity being the keynote, the ten- and twenty- 
 and thirty-cent theatre-goer must have action laid on in large 
 sweeps. The emotions must not be subtle; they must ascend 
 toward the climax, not in flowing consistency, but with inter- 
 mittent thumps. The formula exacts that the heroine must 
 be as young and fresh after twenty hairbreadth escapes as 
 though she were attending a garden party. Yet from the 
 technical side, Mr. Davis's ingenuity is striking. He wrote 
 the dialogue for and planned the staging of "The Siege of 
 Port Arthur" for the Hippodrome, and certain striking ele- 
 ments therein he transferred to his own melodrama, " Convict 
 999." ^ He has written so many melodramas of the con- 
 ventional type, he has studied the situation so thoroughly, 
 that he is able to tell exactly in what respects the next change 
 in melodrama will be revealed. Although his "Gambler 
 of the West," his "Broadway after Dark," his "Chinatown 
 
 1 Other plays by Mr. Davis are: "On Trial for his Life," "The 
 Crooked Path," "The Priuce of Spendthrifts," "The Millionaire 
 and the Circus Rider," "Jack Sheppard, the Bandit King," and 
 "The King and Queen of Gamblers." 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 195 
 
 Charlie," and his "Creole Slave's Revenge" are sure of a 
 hearing from his particular following, he recognizes that 
 this following is becoming sated, that their acceptance is 
 being turned into incredulity, that they are being educated 
 away from the old order and nearer the legitimate realm of 
 melodrama. 
 
 In this respect, it may be noted that A. H. Woods, one 
 of the largest managers of melodrama in America, is himself 
 being involved in this change. For while he has been the 
 means of encouraging the thriller of the present, he likewise, 
 as a manager, has been drawn nearer to the legitimate drama; 
 and a reaction is likewise occurring in his own attitude toward 
 this particular theatre which has made him a fortune. Where- 
 as heretofore he would have discountenanced any attempt 
 on the part of Owen Davis or Theodore Kremer, of John 
 Oliver or of the other countless writers of melodrama to 
 use any subtle methods in depicting emotion, in treating 
 consistent sequence of cause and effect, he is now himself 
 becoming critical of the sensationalism of the past. Just 
 so soon as Mr. Woods goes over the line which separates the 
 melodramatic syndicate from the theatrical trust, just so 
 soon will the new departure in melodrama occur.^ Then 
 will Mr. Davis be able to put into practice his greatest hopes, 
 and, provided his sense of proportion is not atrophied, he 
 will be able to satisfy his own ambitions. 
 
 Mr. Theodore Kremer likewise shows the same dissatis- 
 faction over being forced to produce such dramas as " Bertha, 
 the Sewing Machine Girl," "Fast Life in New York," "The 
 Fatal Wedding," and "The King of Bigamists." He out- 
 lines the melodramatic formula in this way: "My audiences 
 are all from Missouri; they want to be shown; unless you 
 show them first they will not believe. In the play now being 
 
 1 Since this writing, Mr. Woods has gone over the line in "The 
 Girl and the Taxi," a piece full of dull vulgarity. 
 
196 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 acted by Miss Ethel Barrymore ['Her Sister'], it is made 
 clear during the conversation that the fortune-teller and 
 the young man to whom she is engaged first met in a train. 
 Now it is all right for the Broadway audiences to hear that 
 the two met in a train, but the Eighth Avenue audiences 
 have to be shown the train and the meeting. Instead of 
 beginning the acquaintance by having him hand her a paper, 
 he would — to please my theatre goers — have to fling the 
 paper in her face. She would be insulted and address him, 
 'Sir!' Then he would apologize, the acquaintance would 
 begin, and it could then ripen into love, but not before. And 
 in the first act of the play the fortune-teller would have to 
 be shot on to the stage out of a trap-door." 
 
 Mr. Kremer was once regarded as the Clyde Fitch of 
 melodrama, even as Owen Davis usurped the title of 
 Augustus Thomas; and should one examine the manuscripts 
 of each, this distinction might be readily seen, for Mr. Davis's 
 sensationalism is fraught with the vigor of the masculine, 
 whereas Mr. Kremer usually deals with the feminine.^ Yet 
 despite this sex view-point, their plays are worked absolutely 
 upon the same lines; their heroes, their heroines, their 
 villains, their inconsistencies, their colloquial humor, their 
 virtues which obtrude to such a degree as to lack virtue, 
 their seriousness which is so pronounced as to be humorous, 
 are all of the same color. They write their plays according 
 to a formula decided upon between themselves and their 
 manager. The bill-board posters are drawn a long while 
 before pen is even put to paper. The trap-doors, the bridges 
 which are to be blown up, the walls which are to be scaled, 
 the instruments of torture for the persecuted heroines, the 
 
 ^ Other writers of melodrama are John Oliver, Hal Reid, Lem 
 B. Parker, William L. Roberts, Joseph B, Totten, Joseph Le Brandt, 
 and Langdon McCormack. Al Woods is taken as the typical pro- 
 ducer of melodramas; there were others. 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 197 
 
 freight elevators which are to crush out the hves of deserving 
 characters, the elevated trains which are to rush upon the 
 prostrate forms of gagged and insensible girls, — all these 
 melodramatic accessories are determined upon before the 
 manuscript takes shape. In fact, there is little shaping 
 done after the situations are decided upon. The only thing 
 left for the dramatist is to fill up the gaps with conversations 
 which lead, however irrelevantly, to the situations them- 
 selves. Herein are to be found those elements of melodrama 
 which are finally to be the cause of its own undoing. For 
 the masses are being better educated, are — because of the 
 general interest in drama — coming under influences which 
 raise their standards of living and soften their ideals. One 
 cannot fool the public all the time at the theatre, even though 
 it be on Eighth Avenue or on the Bowery. They have been 
 fooled once, twice, thrice; and soon they will reach the 
 point where the manager of melodrama will in turn find 
 himself fooled. That is the hope of the legitimate melo- 
 drama. Besides which, those audiences once sated with 
 such acting now find their tastes gratified by the moving 
 picture which has to accentuate action in order to be seen. 
 
 It is hard to analyze any of the plays representing this 
 pecuHar type. The newspaper accidents, murders, intrigues, 
 the electrical and mechanical marvels of the age, are all 
 used. There is the conventional drunkard who maltreats 
 the conventional cripple; there is the one character from 
 whom all humor flows, a convention which marks the Yid- 
 dish stage as well. The hero, in the course of his progress 
 along the path of love, disguises himself a thousand and one 
 times; and the grand finale usually comes with the arrival 
 of a man-of-war, or the rushing on of soldiers. You cannot 
 outline the plot; you can only enumerate the situations. 
 
 It is said that yellow journalism is dependent not so much 
 upon the manner in which a leading article is written, as on 
 
198 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the style in which the type is set and the manner in which 
 the pictures are drawn. 
 
 This perhaps might likewise be claimed for melodrama. 
 Once win a bad name, and it is hard to escape it. In Mr. 
 Belasco's " The Girl of the Golden West" the wounded hero 
 is hidden by the girl from the pursuing Sheriff, and from 
 where he lies in the rafters of the room, blood drips upon the 
 floor beneath. Had Mr. Kremer been the author of this 
 piece, one would have smiled at it. But the two-dollar audi- 
 ences accepted it because it was Mr. Belasco. However, 
 the difference between "The Girl of the Golden West," 
 softened by some attempt at subdued acting, and "The 
 Girl of the Golden West" as it might have been given on the 
 Bowery or Eighth Avenue, would lie wholly in the matter 
 of accentuation. 
 
 Undoubtedly the melodrama of to-day differs from the 
 melodrama of yesterday; and that it has fallen into dis- 
 favor is due solely to the fact that its essential characteristics 
 have been misused. This does not mean that the character- 
 istics, per se, are not healthy and dramatic. The melodrama 
 of to-morrow will show an increased consistency on the part 
 of the dramatist, and will indicate a corresponding improve- 
 ment in the tastes of those audiences which are now stigma- 
 tized as a class, but which differ essentially from the legiti- 
 mate audiences only in the fact that one pays twenty-five 
 cents for a seat while the other pays two dollars. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 On the subject of melodrama, the reader is referred to the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 "Old Melodrama." H. D. Baker. Belgra., 50:331-39, 1883. 
 "Possibilities of Melodrama." Syec, 56:1691. 
 " Melodrama." All the Year, 41 :436. 
 "Melodrama." See Price's "Technique of the Drama." 
 "Melodrama." Harry James Smith. Atlantic, March, 1907 . 
 
CONCERNING MELODRAMA 199 
 
 'Melodrama." Diccionario Enciclopedico Hispano-Americano 
 
 de Literatura, Ciencias y Artes. 
 'The Taint of Melodrama and some Recent Books." F. T. Cooper. 
 
 Bookman, 22:630-35, Feb., 1906. 
 Melodrama." Button Cook. ''On the Stage," 2:190. 
 Melodrama." A. B. Walkley. "Playhouse," 170. 
 Melodrama." International. Dodd, Mead. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 
 
 The kinetoscopic theatre is at the parting of the ways. The 
 crucial point has arrived when it shall either be a great suc- 
 cess or an absolute failure. In New York alone, people have 
 been flocking through the gaudy, blatant entrances at the 
 rate of two hundred thousand a week. In eighteen minutes 
 they have been given a production of "Romeo and Juliet" 
 or of "Othello'' or of "Francesca da Rimini," and they have 
 gone out, only to be superseded by a crowd as big and just 
 as eager. The manager of the mechanical "show" measures 
 his profit by the rapidity with which he turns out one audi- 
 ence and gathers in another. 
 
 The kinetoscopic theatre, however, is a factor to be reck- 
 oned with. It may be made a source of good or a source of 
 evil. It has built up a business which has its problems similar 
 to those confronting the theatre managers. It requires for 
 its success an intelligent handling on the part of the manu- 
 facturer of the pictures, of the middleman, and of the show- 
 man. Unfortunately, with the rapid increase of the business, 
 this careful thought is lacking. Where a manufacturing 
 firm turns out nearly two hundred and eighty thousand feet 
 of film a day, it is natural that much of the material should 
 be of inferior quality. There is ample room for the kineto- 
 scopic dramatist. 
 
 The kinetoscopic theatre audience speaks in terms of 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 201 
 
 minutes and miles. When it goes to see " Othello/' jt ex- 
 pects to grasp the story in seventeen minutes. The actors 
 who are employed to perform a play before the camera 
 interpret their roles in terms of large gestures, of abnormal 
 facial expression, and of excessive passion. Not so very 
 long ago a stock company in New England was employed 
 by one of the kinetoscopic companies to play for them the 
 first act of Belasco's version of "Zaza." Ordinarily, this 
 takes from forty -five to fifty minutes for actual performance, 
 but the company ran through all the "business" in fifteen 
 minutes. This might be called strenuous acting in a mechan- 
 ical age. Instead of having to pay actors for performing 
 " Romeo and Juliet," the manager of the nickelodeon has to 
 pay for the use of his films by the week, being charged ac- 
 cording to the number of feet used in telling the story. For 
 example, the film of Boker's "Francesca da Rimini," em- 
 bracing seven scenes, has a length of 990 feet, "Romeo and 
 Juliet" 915 feet, and "Macbeth" 835 feet. A time will 
 come, therefore, when drama for the kinetoscope audiences 
 will literally be measured by the mile. 
 
 The five- and ten-cent theatres sell their tickets as the 
 drug stores dispose of their soda checks, in long rolls. Un- 
 fortunately for the business, there are many sections of every 
 large city where two or three such theatres are found in one 
 block, following the example of the saloon. Competition 
 is healthy, but such wildcat speculation is ruinous to the 
 small manager. He thinks that to have his machine and to 
 rent his films are sufficient. He does not calculate upon 
 whether or not the location is good; he does not plan how 
 to manage his audiences; he believes — judging by the 
 profits that others have made — that the show will run 
 itself, whereas it is subject to the same rules as other busi- 
 nesses. The average exhibitor of moving-pictures must 
 either show brains — which he is not doing — or else go 
 
202 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 under. Though his outfit may be mechanical, his audience 
 is not; the people have definite tastes regarding what they 
 see, and the exhibitor, the manufacturer, and the renter 
 must watch this public in order to sound its varying desires. 
 
 It is only a question of time before the nickelodeon is 
 improved: either the wildcat manager will be forced out 
 of business, or he will have to conform to better methods. 
 A failure to-day in the moving-picture business means that 
 the man who owns the business has no brains, and does not 
 know the people of the locality in which he works. For, 
 after all, the success of the nickelodeon represents so much 
 human response. 
 
 Usually, the frequenters of these cheap places are those 
 who cannot afford more expensive pleasures; those who 
 gather around the white tin entrances with their glaring 
 posters are most likely children who cannot even afford 
 five-cent luxuries. These waifs are kept at bay by a man 
 flourishing a cane. Sometimes, when business is slack, 
 children are invited in to help keep up appearances. 
 
 There is much to be said for and against the moving- 
 picture. Judiciously used, it could be educational, but at 
 best it is mechanical, it lacks individuality; this must be 
 kept in mind. Its usefulness has received widespread 
 recognition. The government at Washington has its film 
 department; the moving-picture serves as record for military 
 manoeuvres and naval displays. A catalogue records the 
 title for a film twenty-seven feet long : " A German Torpedo 
 Flotilla in Action," taken by special command of Kaiser 
 Wilhelm. In New York, the Museum of Natural History 
 is experimenting with the cinematograph, picturing the 
 flight of birds, the habitat of bears. 
 
 The moving-picture as an amusement lacks the human 
 element, yet the response it creates is human. It can never 
 be art; it can only be a representation of art, and as such 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 203 
 
 it must be directed. The Victor talking machines have 
 ground forth the speeches of Taft and of Bryan; the bio- 
 graph has projected the motion of the National Conven- 
 tions. Bring the phonograph and the biograph together, 
 and still the live element is absent. For this reason it is one 
 of the greatest enemies to the theatre, which is a live insti- 
 tution, presenting plays in human fashion. 
 
 At best the nickelodeon audiences are casual groups : they 
 are not held together by any effective bond of common 
 interest or large idea. Their drama is told in seeable action, 
 and there is little or no time spent on other than elemental 
 idea or sentiment. That is a danger which only an educa- 
 tional grip of the situation could stop. But the boys and 
 girls of the tenements, their mothers and fathers, go of an 
 evening because the diversion is stimulating without effort, 
 even though there is a strain upon the eyes. 
 
 The manufacturer of mechanical music, of mechanical 
 drama, has an ethical responsibility. It lies between points 
 admirably indicated by two scenes which are uppermost in 
 my mind. One Sunday morning, in the Blue Ridge Moun- 
 tains, overlooking the Shenandoah Valley, I visited a cabin 
 perched above a forest of trees; grandmother, grandfather, 
 mother and father, son and daughter, and a string of children 
 sat grouped around a phonograph, listening to some country- 
 man telling his comical city experiences. Then the father, 
 in flannel shirt and heavy boots, his lined and roughened 
 face aglow with pleasure, announced that a church choir 
 would sing to them. Despite the grating sound, these 
 simple folk sat awed by the beauty of the quartette. The 
 manufacturers measure popular taste by the music halls, 
 and, unfortunately, not by the native temperament.^ 
 
 * In passing, it is well to note that the phonograph is now being 
 used to record the negro folk-songs and the tribal chants of 
 Indians. 
 
204 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 The other picture is on Avenue C, in New York, in a 
 crowded block, where people must elbow their way, where 
 there is never quiet, and never a blade of grass. The Herr 
 Professor in charge of one of these houses would have nature 
 scenes brought from the topmost mountain, from the inner- 
 most depth of the American forest, to offset the cramping 
 city view of tenement upon tenement. Such is the possi- 
 bility, yet such is not the accomplishment, except in this 
 one instance. The moving-picture business needs in- 
 telligent guiding; that is its one hope. Otherwise, it be- 
 comes a menace, socially, morally, and ethically. What is 
 now urgent is to prevent the vitiating effect of undesirable 
 performances. The nickelodeon without an idea behind it is 
 a menace to the neighborhood. The idea must be inserted, 
 for there is no doubt that the moving-picture has come to 
 stay. The visual sense must be supplemented by a mental 
 stimulus. Intellectually, the five-cent audience is worthy 
 of a higher form of amusement than the moving-picture 
 show can supply. It is the personality of its manager, with 
 his ideas and his ideals, that raises the business to a dif- 
 ferent plane. And the Herr Professor, with his educational 
 aspirations and his knowledge of what the people like, found 
 that being a conscientious nickelodeon manager brought 
 profit in more ways than one. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the exhibitor has to deal 
 with the manufacturer through a middleman. There is a 
 film trust, just as there is a theatrical trust, and the 
 exhibitor is not allowed to rent directly from the manu- 
 facturers. There are two dangers consequent upon this 
 arrangement. The exhibitor often has no choice but to take 
 what the renter gives him. If he receives a good subject 
 one day, he has to expect a poor, a sensational, a common 
 subject the next. This would be obviated, provided the 
 exhibitor could select his films for each show directly from 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 205 
 
 the manufacturer. To judge by investigations, it will be 
 found that the exhibitor has not yet discovered that he is 
 not obHged to take what he does not wish. The trust situ- 
 ation, as it confronts the kinetoscope business, is a struggle 
 carried on between several organized manufacturers on the 
 one hand and a number of independent firms on the other. 
 The exhibitor, therefore, has reached that stage when he 
 grabs what he can get. A censorship bureau, begun in New 
 York, but of wide scope, now gives better advantages to 
 the small exhibitor, inasmuch as by its actions it is weeding 
 out that which will be harmful, and demanding higher grade 
 films. 
 
 II 
 
 The nickelodeon theatre has its press-agent, and this press 
 agent has his particular vocabulary, filled with descriptive 
 adjectives that express motion. The Moving Picture World, 
 devoted to the interests of animated photographs, quotes 
 a sample of such literature: "To hear the voice, to catch 
 every sound and intonation of every word, and see the people 
 in life size moving before your eyes, and yet realise there 
 is not a single person there — it seems like some phantom 
 of the brain, an hallucination, and one is almost tempted to 
 rush to the stage and grapple with the ghostly actors as one 
 is moved to cry out in the vividness of a dream.'' 
 
 After a performance is completed, the audience is supposed 
 to pass out. In some places the management delicately re- 
 minds them of this fact by repeating one or two of the pictures 
 previously seen. In other places, however, such a method 
 is entirely too subtle, and so an official, known as " the chaser," 
 proceeds down the middle aisle doing his work. Most of 
 the theatres are managed in practically the same way. 
 Should you visit several of them you would find a certain 
 monotony, which is one of the insurmountable facts about 
 
206 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 moving-pictures — the monotony of mechanical interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
 But the moving-picture has in many respects come to stay. 
 The newspaper reporter, for instance, has a rival, since it 
 has now become generally recognized that wherever an 
 event of moment is taking place, side by side with the news- 
 paper man may generally be found the moving-picture man 
 with his outfit. I have been told that in England such a 
 phrase as "the animated newspaper" has been coined. 
 King Edward VII. once opened an exhibition at South Ken- 
 sington; two hours and a half after the ceremony, a matinee 
 audience twelve miles away was witnessing the occurrence 
 by means of the kinetoscope. The reporter speaks of his 
 Sunday feature in the newspaper. In the same sense the 
 moving-picture man is accomplishing similar results by 
 his films, which show the surrender of Port Arthur, the riots 
 in St. Petersburg — led by Father Capon — and the assas- 
 sination of the Grand Duke Sergius. 
 
 Already the operators of the kinetoscope have formed 
 themselves into an organization known as " Local No. 23 
 of the Theatrical, Electrical, Calcium Picture and Project- 
 ing Machine Operators' Union of New York." Everywhere 
 in this moving-picture business, there seems to be organi- 
 zation, but there are many entering the field who have no idea 
 as to how the work should be run. 
 
 Sometimes when the films are particularly fine, the man- 
 ager raises his price from five to ten cents, just as the theatre 
 manager raises his price when Bernhardt comes to this 
 country. On the New York East Side during Easter Week 
 the whole Passion of Christ was given in moving-pictures. 
 The performance took more than an hour and was accom- 
 panied by a lecture outlining the chief incidents. Altogether 
 the films, divided into four parts, amounted to three thou- 
 sand, one hundred and fourteen feet in length. Despite the fact 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 207 
 
 that this nickelodeon theatre was situated in the Jewish quar- 
 ter, the manager told me that during the week he exhibited 
 the film, his business had been larger than ever before. 
 
 I have used the phrase "exhibited the film." This means 
 that, according to the way in which the business is managed, 
 the films travel from point to point, just as a stock company 
 would go from theatre to theatre. A film has its "route," 
 just as a traveling company has its "route," and I have been 
 told by many operators: "My *Way Down East' film, or 
 my * Ben-Hur ' film arrives to-morrow evening." The Ameri- 
 can dramatists have sought to protect themselves through 
 a revision of the copyright law, and a suit once pended over 
 the kinetoscope use of "Ben-Hur." When one considers 
 that we are applying human terms to the mechanical facts, 
 the humor of the situation is very striking. 
 
 In Paris, the Pathe Freres — realizing the essential right 
 of the French dramatist to his own property — have done 
 the next best thing; they have arranged with members of 
 the Society of French Dramatists and Authors to write special 
 plays for use solely by the kinetoscope. If the talking- 
 machines may preserve the voices of our opera singers, why 
 may not the kinetoscope preserve the acting of our actors? 
 For, to carry the educational feature one step further, the 
 time may not be far off when our dramatic schools will be 
 instructed by Mme. Bernhardt and Coquelin from the moving- 
 picture screen. 
 
 Unfortunately, in our rush to introduce the moving-pic- 
 tures into this country — a rush that is creating a very 
 thoughtless competition in the trade — our manufacturers 
 are forgetting the ethics of the business. They have not 
 as yet compromised in the French manner with the American 
 dramatist, though they will be forced later on to do so. But 
 they have been taking without permission the popular 
 successes of the moment, and turning them by the whole- 
 
208 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 sale into kinetoscopic shows. That is why, in its last session, 
 the Copyright Committee called before it many representa- 
 tives of the American Dramatists' Club, especially those 
 who were suffering by reason of the kinetoscopic perform- 
 ances of their plays. William A. Brady gave his evidence 
 as to "Way Down East": "My play," so he said, "is now 
 being printed on films of from a hundred to two hundred 
 copies a week, by a company which is a member of this 
 [moving-picture] Trust in Chicago; and yesterday one of 
 my companies, composed of thirty-five people — men and 
 women — was forced off the road and sent back to New York. 
 They never can play again, because in nearly every one- 
 night stand in this country, 'Way Down East' is being 
 presented on every street corner, presented from a stolen 
 manuscript by a man who went into one of our theatres 
 and took down a copy of our play, and sold it to this picture 
 firm which is now destroying my property." At the same 
 committee meeting, Charles Klein spoke of "The Music 
 Master" which had been presented at a nickelodeon house 
 on Fourteenth Street. This competition with his own play 
 hurt the gallery receipts at the Academy of Music; and such 
 a condition is ruination in many instances to the manager, 
 since the profits of a theatre are almost always to be found 
 in the gallery. 
 
 During the course of this conference between legislators 
 and theatrical people, it was brought out that contracts had 
 been made in France by moving-picture manufacturers, with 
 Edmond Rostand, Henri Lavedan, and Alfred Capus, for the 
 writing of special plays, the former to do three fairy dramas, 
 of which the first will be "The Sleeping Beauty," while 
 Lavedan will write an historical drama, dealing with the 
 Due de Guise, and Capus will depict scenes of financial life 
 in Paris. 
 
 The manager of the nickelodeon has his legal problems 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 209 
 
 to contend with. There is a license to be obtained. There 
 is the consideration of whether he will be allowed to intro- 
 duce vaudeville into his performance without being required 
 to pay for a theatre license. There are laws to be considered 
 that bring him in contact with the Department of Electricity, 
 the Fire Department, the Tenement House Department, 
 and the Department of Licenses. He has to struggle with 
 the insurance companies, which look askance at the risk. He 
 is now being menaced by a law that is looming up before 
 him, preventing a nickelodeon theatre from being situated 
 in any tenement house where the risk jeopardizes the lives 
 of families living above. 
 
 On the other hand, the managers of these small amuse- 
 ment places have to be watched carefully. It has been found 
 that some will take out licenses as operators, and then will 
 transfer these licenses to small boys who are employed in 
 their stead at lower salaries. In New Jersey, to cite one 
 instance, boys of eleven years old were reported as running 
 the machine. The sanitary condition of the places has to 
 be supervised, and the Building Department has found 
 difficulty in making the managers comply with the laws 
 regulating the exits. So many foreigners are now entering 
 the business that it has been found necessary to agitate 
 the adoption of a special bill requiring all managers and 
 operators to be citizens of the United States, as well as 
 residents of the community in which they work. Massachu- 
 setts has been markedly active in passing ordinances. One 
 in particular has touched upon the greatest weakness con- 
 nected with the kinetoscope as an educational or amusement 
 consideration. I refer to the strain upon the sight. After 
 visiting a number of these places in succession, subjecting the 
 eyes to two hours* continual use, it will be found that the per- 
 sistent flutter of the film not only tires but pains the muscles 
 of the eyes. After careful investigation by some of the lead- 
 
210 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 ing physicians in Boston, the Massachusetts Legislature 
 passed a bill requiring that five minutes of light must flood 
 the theatre after every twenty minutes of pictures. This 
 requirement, if it is generally passed through the States, as 
 it should be, will hurt many small places which are only long, 
 dark stores supplied with a number of seats but with no 
 ventilation and no windows. 
 
 Inventors are busily engaged in trying to overcome the 
 defects in the moving-pictures. It has been found that the 
 flutter of the film on the screen is due to one of two causes: 
 either the strip is an old one, or there are not a sufficient 
 number of pictures covering the different movements. By 
 this latter statement is meant that were more pictures taken 
 per second, there would be less apparent flutter of the film. 
 A French firm has just avoided any possibility of eye strain 
 by having their films contain many more pictures to the 
 second, thus reducing to a minimum the apparent gap from 
 point to point of action, and thus doing away altogether 
 with any jar. Another important change has been effected. 
 Most of the pictures thrown upon the white screen appear 
 flat; there is no atmosphere behind objects seen. In other 
 words, the figures look as though they were being witnessed 
 by a person with one eye closed. Perfect perspective will 
 soon be given to the kinetoscope theatre performances 
 through a binocular effect. 
 
 Still another improvement will come. That will be in the 
 reproduction of natural color upon the screen, the applica- 
 tion of color photography to the kinetoscope. The other 
 improvement which is now a fact will perhaps mean more 
 in a general way to the operator than the others. In run- 
 ning his machine, he has always been fearful of fire; the 
 slightest defect in the instrument would result in his film 
 catching fire from the electric spark. The companies are 
 now sending out non-inflammable material. 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 211 
 
 The important point regarding the moving-picture is 
 that it has educational possibilities. The five-cent audience 
 is not only a clean audience, but is ambitious as well. The 
 manufacturers of films have thus far produced much that 
 is trash, especially in their comic, or what they call harmless, 
 scenes. They have unnecessarily sensational stories, show- 
 ing that much of their object is to supply a wildcat demand 
 rather than to improve that demand. The five-cent audi- 
 ence is always interested in desirable subjects that will 
 describe the occupations, customs, architecture, and chief 
 racial characteristics of the nations. 
 
 The five-cent audience is interested in wild-animal life 
 and in historical views much more than in the ridiculous 
 comedies that are not so suggestive as they are inane. Of 
 course the police have been obliged at times to put a stop 
 to certain subjects thrown upon the screen, not because 
 of their outward suggestiveness but because of their lack 
 of healthy moral. The Children's Court has had to con- 
 sider cases of grand larceny inspired by the moving-pictures 
 of a burglar. There have been petty thefts committed by 
 children who for five cents have been taught the best way 
 of getting what belongs to others. But as a general rule the 
 nickelodeons, or moving-picture theatres, of which there are 
 some three or four hundred in New York City, present a 
 harmless bill of fare, if not a very educational one. 
 
 After examining a number of catalogues of the different 
 manufacturers, and bearing continually in mind that every 
 moving-picture has been the result of actual performance, 
 one is surprised to find the dangers that kinetoscopic actors 
 have to risk in order to depict a given story. Every manu- 
 facturer has his paid company of actors, and these have to 
 be richly costumed just as though they were to give a per- 
 formance on a regular stage. Historical plays are accurately 
 mounted. Not only is scenery prepared, but the actors are 
 
212 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 likewise taken into the country where different localities are 
 agreed upon for different situations. The trouble and expense 
 in this respect are great. Only recently in Rochester, two 
 automobiles met with an accident while rushing through 
 the street illustrating for the kinetoscope the abduction of a 
 girl. So that a manufacturer finds more profit in sending 
 his photographers traveling throughout the world, making 
 pictures of pageants, historical scenes, military and naval 
 spectaculars, than in mounting rich productions himself. 
 
 The kinetoscope, however, has had to adopt many methods 
 of the theatre. One of the chief resorts is dramatization, 
 so we find one concern making arrangements with the 
 author and publisher of "Monsieur Beaucaire" and with 
 the author and manager of " Raffles,*' and with the publisher 
 and author of " Sherlock Holmes " for the privilege of dram- 
 atizing. The kinetoscope dramatist, so to speak, takes 
 wherever he can find. He outlines the story of "Treasure 
 Island;" he adapts Boucicault's "The Shaughraun;" he 
 makes a scenario of "Dora," based on Tennyson; he mod- 
 ernizes "Oliver Twist;" he receives suggestions for Belasco's 
 "Madame Butterfly;" he turns Hawtrey's "Messenger 
 from Mars" into a sentimental tale of a selfish man; he 
 takes the motive of "Othello" and puts it into a story that 
 is the husk without the spirit of Shakespeare. In some cases, 
 where a film has been particularly popular, he is forced to 
 write a sequel. All this is not specially original work, but 
 the moving-picture man expects eventually to encourage the 
 high art of the pantomimist. And there is no doubt that 
 eventually the American dramatist will himself write small 
 plays for the kinetoscope that will accentuate pantomime. 
 
THE KINETOSCOPIC THEATRE 213 
 
 III 
 
 All of these subjects are thrown upon the screen for an 
 eager audience. They are supplemented very often by a 
 word of explanation from the manager, or by a short descrip- 
 tion printed on the film. Sometimes the phonograph is 
 called into use, but as yet it has not been very successfully 
 employed. The manager must know his pictures, so that 
 if a horse dashes upon the roadway he can imitate the clat- 
 ter of hoofs; if a man falls from the roof he must represent 
 the crash, just as whenever a clown falls at the circus the 
 drum in the orchestra measures the extent of his hurt. An 
 intelligent manager could inject much humor into his pic- 
 tures from behind the screen, but he must be careful to keep 
 the moral tone clean. He must also at times watch the 
 realism of his play. In Chicago, according to the Moving 
 Picture World, the police stopped the performance of " Mac- 
 beth," and the report of the officer of the law is worth quoting: 
 "I am not taking issue with Shakespeare," he said. "As a 
 writer he was far from reproach, but he never looked into the 
 distance and saw that his plays were going to be interpreted 
 for the five-cent theatre. Shakespeare has a way of making 
 gory things endurable, because there is so much of art and 
 finish. But we cannot reproduce that. . . . When it gets 
 on the canvas, it is worse than the bloodiest melodrama 
 ever." 
 
 The stabbing scene in the play is not predominant, but 
 in a picture show it is the feature. By outdoing melodrama, 
 the moving-picture has been one of the agents to kill melo- 
 drama of the violent kind. In the play, the stabbing is for- 
 gotten amidst the other exciting and artful and artistic 
 creations that divert the imagination. On the canvas, you 
 see the dagger enter and come out, the blood flow, and the 
 wound that is left. 
 
214 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Thus it is essential to remember that in externaHzing a 
 story for the kinetoscope, the bare details through their very 
 nature sometimes become over-accentuated. 
 
 The moving-picture has undoubtedly hurt the theatrical 
 business. It steals the spoken drama and reduces it to 
 motion. Every road company has its tale to tell of business 
 ruined by the kinetoscope; every vaudeville house is forced 
 to open its doors to celluloid drama. And when summer 
 arrives, the legitimate playhouses turn themselves into nickel- 
 odeons. In a way all this is a menace to the American 
 dramatist. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF THE MOVING-PICTURE SINCE 1910 
 
 The moving-picture has proven itself to be such an agent 
 of vast educational possibilities that one cannot dismiss it 
 merely because it has also proven harmful in many direc- 
 tions to the art of the theatre. We must reckon it as a social 
 force which inevitably competes with the theatre as a busi- 
 ness enterprise. 
 
 The rapid progress of the moving-picture industry, which 
 makes it now probably the second largest factor in the manu- 
 facturing field, has been almost meteoric since the kineto- 
 scope was first introduced as a novelty in 1893. Its history, 
 as outlined in previous sections, presents an interesting meas- 
 ure of the quickness with which the moving-picture was 
 accepted by the public as an entertainment, as well as an 
 educational feature. Like all new inventions, it has had to 
 pass through many phases of unwise experiment and wild-cat 
 speculation. Running along the lines of least resistance, it 
 has had to pass through certain channels of rigorous censor- 
 ship, until such laws were framed to govern it as would regu- 
 late and define its status in the community. 
 
 Since its first days, the moving-picture may be said to have 
 made inroads on the energy of the theatre. It has so far 
 developed beyond its nickelodeon stage that it has now 
 created a special type of theatre for itself. Furthermore, it 
 has drawn from the professional playhouses whatever talents 
 it has required to further its popular success. 
 
216 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 When the subject was first treated in this volume, the 
 moving-picture was just reaching out to the legitimate actor 
 for cooperation. In the past few years almost the entire act- 
 ing profession, at one time or another, has deserted the 
 standards of legitimate drama and gone over to the ranks of 
 celluloid business. There is scarcely an actor of note who 
 has been able to withstand the financial allurements offered 
 by moving-picture managers. Some of these actors have 
 been won over through the improvement made in the me- 
 chanical details of manufacture, whereby most artistic results 
 can be obtained on the screen and fine details be registered 
 by the lens. Not only that, but since nickelodeon days, when 
 the cheapest kind of films were hastily put together by writers 
 who were not then sure of the technique required for the 
 scenario, there has been a decided improvement in the con- 
 structive part of moving-picture plots; there has been more 
 care bestowed on the actual structure of the entertainment. 
 
 The increase in screen work; the enormous amount of 
 capital involved, large sums being paid by rival companies 
 in a cut-throat policy of competition; the cornering of actors 
 and actresses by the moving-pictures, reminding one of the 
 palmy days of the "star'* system, when Charles Frohman 
 and Klaw & Erlanger, and other managers were corralling 
 promising young players; — all of these activities show very 
 clearly the importance attached, within the past five years, 
 to the moving-picture industry in competition with the legiti- 
 mate theatre. The familiar copyright notice is now stretched 
 to include not only the right of translation, but dramatic and 
 moving-picture rights, — a precaution necessary in view of 
 the fact that managers, in unwise and unthinking haste, are 
 trying to monopolize all fiction that will best suit their 
 purposes. 
 
 Granting, therefore, that the moving-picture has come to 
 stay, we are concerned here only with its relation to theatri- 
 
MOVING-PICTURE SINCE 1910 217 
 
 cal art and to the theatre itself. We must take it for granted 
 that, since the days of the old peep-hole machine, there has 
 been every effort made to put the moving-picture on a higher 
 educational plane. By this, the managers have counteracted 
 the cheapness of the entertainment that used to be offered 
 in the nickelodeon. We must take it for granted also that, 
 by slow degrees, due to the ingenuity of Thomas Edison and 
 other inventors, the mechanism of the moving-picture has 
 reached a high perfection of achievement. In addition, 
 through successive attempts on the part of moving-picture 
 managers to raise the character of the entertainment by pro- 
 ducing the "Passion Play'' and by enlisting the artistic 
 services of Sarah Bernhardt, the moving-picture has, in its 
 artistic structure, been brought to a state of excellence which 
 places it on an artistic footing. 
 
 Granting all this, there is left for us to consider the advance 
 in artistry since 1910, and the effect this has had on the 
 theatre. 
 
 The technique of the moving-picture has become a science. 
 Many books have been written on the subject, probably the 
 most instructive being that by Epes Winthrop Sargent, en- 
 titled "The Technique of the Photoplay." Throughout the 
 country there is a vast horde of people studying the structure 
 of the screen scenario, and meeting with considerable success 
 in placing manuscripts. W^ere one to ask the reason why the 
 legitimate stage has not heard much within recent years from 
 George Ade, one might say, not knowing how right the in- 
 ference, that he was devoting some of his dramatic talents to 
 the manufacturing of plots or captions for the moving-picture. 
 It is demanding ingenuity in all directions. 
 
 The elements in the moving-picture business discussed in 
 the preceding pages have developed along separate lines and 
 have made tremendous strides. Through the efforts of the 
 Censorship Board, the comedy output has improved, and 
 
218 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 through the cooperation of the legitimate actor, the drama 
 element has approached in delineation nearer to the legiti- 
 mate stage. Since 1910, Daniel Frohman has devoted almost 
 his entire energy in furthering the work of the Famous 
 Players Film Company, and through his assistance the work 
 of the moving-picture actor has deserved a greater claim to 
 be called art. It is he who has helped to draw into the mov- 
 ing-picture activity such actors as James O'Neill in " Monte 
 Cristo," James K. Hackett in "The Prisoner of Zenda," 
 and Viola Allen in " The Christian." One by one the differ- 
 ent well-known plays have since these initial times been 
 screened. But the managers have often failed to differenti- 
 ate between the external drama of the moving-picture play 
 and the intensive psychological drama which only the actor's 
 finest work can reveal. This failure to differentiate was 
 excellently seen at the time Mrs. Fiske appeared in her well- 
 earned success, " Tess of the D 'Urbervilles." The difference 
 was likewise apparent when Cyril Maude produced the screen 
 picture of "Peer Gynt." One only has to see how far away 
 from the original plot and artistic structure of a work of art 
 the screen scenario must go to realize the wide difference in 
 technique, and the tremendous liberties that must be taken. 
 As a moving-picture critic declared, it would have been a 
 staggering blow to Henrik Ibsen if he had been able to see 
 what was done with his masterpiece, so great was the mass of 
 interpolated scenes. 
 
 The moving-picture at best is mechanical. It is based on 
 "fake," on trickery, on excess action and emotion, on situa- 
 tion rather than on psychology. Its technique consists in 
 " switch backs " and " close ups " and " repetitions." Its suc- 
 cess has been dependent, very largely, on its visual demands 
 rather than on its intellectual demands. The moving-picture 
 play, whether it be a dramatization of Victor Hugo's "Les 
 Miserables," or Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," pre- 
 
MOVING-PICTURE SINCE 1910 219 
 
 sents an easy way of gaining an instantaneous impression of 
 literature and drama. This impression passes through the 
 eye rather than through the brain, and one is left at the end 
 with no measure of the spiritual significance of the whole. 
 We are given an area of action that excites, and oftentimes 
 excites wrongly. 
 
 I have been told by moving-picture actors that while, for a 
 time, the technique of acting before the screen is of interest, 
 because of its novelty, it soon becomes reduced to going 
 through a mass of expert action rather than creating by the 
 very finesse of acting. The fact that there are some players 
 who fail to make a success in the moving-picture, whereas 
 they have gained success on the legitimate stage, is sufficient 
 proof that, as far as technique is concerned, the two arts are 
 different and most likely conflicting. 
 
 It has been my experience, in witnessing different plays on 
 the screen, — especially those I have previously witnessed 
 on the stage, — that the larger the sweep of emotion, the 
 larger the panorama of atmosphere, the larger the opportu- 
 nity for spectacular effects, the more successful will the mov- 
 ing-picture be. I have seen a dramatization of "Treasure 
 Island," and I have seen "Treasure Island" on the screen. 
 The two cannot be compared in the scope of their pictorial 
 effects, but I had a much clearer impression of the unity of 
 the Stevenson tale from the theatre than I did from the cellu- 
 loid drama. In the latter I was carried on a real ship upon 
 the real sea. In the former I was given a painted side of a 
 ship, but I heard the actual voices of the pirates, and the 
 warmth of their personality came across the footlights, and 
 my interest was not scattered over such a wide area. My 
 attention was not called away to successive pictures. I wit- 
 nessed a production of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand 
 Leagues under the Sea." I was given pictures of deep-sea 
 life that no imagination on my part could ever have conjured 
 
220 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 up, even with the aid of Jules Verne's descriptions. The 
 story, as outhned in a cheap scenario, was badly constructed 
 and unsatisfactorily evolved, but the externals of the story 
 were beyond mere words, I have seen Bronson Howard's 
 " Shenandoah," both as a play and as a moving-picture. The 
 latter excelled the former by the very opportunity the situa- 
 tions afforded the moving-picture writer to build on Mr. 
 Howard's scenario and create pictorially the spirit of Civil 
 War times — that same spirit which dominated and made of 
 such educational value Griffith's gigantic "The Birth of a 
 Nation," based on Thomas Dixon's "The Clansman." 
 
 We have heard marvellous statements in regard to the 
 salaries paid to moving-picture actors. Billie Burke turned 
 from the legitimate stage at the call of $4,000 a week for 
 a long continuous engagement, and surprising perquisites on 
 the side. Gcraldine Farrar was willing to sacrifice some 
 of her prestige at the Metropolitan Opera House at the call 
 of celluloid finance. And she has been the heroine in a screen 
 version of "Carmen" and of "Joan of Arc," advertised the 
 country wide more extensively than the Metropolitan Opera 
 House could ever possibly advertise her appearance in 
 Opera. In fact, so important was Miss Farrar's entry into 
 the moving-picture field regarded by the management of the 
 Metropolitan, that a rule was made that hereafter the Opera 
 House should share in the profits of its "stars" who con- 
 sented to do moving-picture work. 
 
 The danger to the legitimate theatre in this wide-spread 
 recruiting of the actor may be seen in Walter P. Eaton's 
 facetious way of describing Miss Farrar's appearance in 
 "Carmen." He writes: "If you can get the fair Geraldine 
 for a jitney, with a real bull thrown in, why spend five bucks 
 to see her at the Opera House without any bull at all?" 
 
 This humorous statement explains the danger of the mov- 
 ing-picture's grip on the theatre-going public. There are no 
 
MOVING-PICTURE SINCE 1910 221 
 
 economic comparisons between the two; only contrasts. 
 Many efforts were made on the part of managers to give 
 enormous productions; they charged tw^o dollars for the 
 evening's entertainment, as in the case of D'Annunzio's 
 "Cabiria." But the fact is, the moving-picture hits the le- 
 gitimate theatre hardest on the side of its very cheapness. 
 Though prices have risen since the days of the nickelodeon, 
 they have scarcely risen above twenty-five cents. Through 
 the chain of smaller theatres, which shows the moving-picture 
 organizing in circuits like the legitimate theatre, these pic- 
 tures are oftentimes offered at even cheaper rates. 
 
 We learn from certain authoritative sources that one-third 
 the population in Dallas, Texas, goes to the moving-picture 
 daily; that one-fifth the population of Cleveland does the 
 same thing. If this is so, is it right for us to argue that all of 
 them go because they like the moving-picture, or because it 
 is the only form of entertainment they can afford? Is it right 
 for us to infer that were it possible, economically, for Geral- 
 dine Farrar in "Carmen" to be seen in one house at a nomi- 
 nal price, while the moving-picture of "Carmen" was being 
 played in another at the same price, people would choose the 
 moving-picture in preference to Geraldine Farrar? Yet we 
 can carry the argument still further, and herein lies another 
 direct point inimical to the theatre. People, economically 
 deprived of paying five dollars to hear Geraldine Farrar sing 
 "Carmen," may argue that the difference between twenty- 
 five cents in seeing her on the screen and five dollars in seeing 
 her at an Opera House — which difference is partly a measure 
 of her personality — is not worth the sacrifice. If one ask 
 how about the voice, we would add that it is possible to hear 
 "Carmen" on the Victor machine at a nominal sum. 
 
 In other words, there is no doubt that the actor who goes 
 into the moving-picture, and yet who retains a love for le- 
 gitimate acting, loses much more than is gained by the 
 
222 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 monetary lure. For, in the exploitation of personality on the 
 screen, one decreases the value of personality in the theatre. 
 
 The moving-picture business, if one stop to consider its 
 organization carefully, is in the same state the theatrical 
 business was in at the time the Theatrical Trust was in full 
 power. There is wild-cat competition, there is a discounting 
 of real intellectual planning, there is a vast waste of time, 
 energy, and money, and there is a cheap rush after novelty. 
 
 The moving-picture is self-consciously making use' of the 
 theatre. Those actors who are in the moving-picture work, 
 and yet who are outspoken in their criticism of it, are candid 
 in their belief that it is enervating to act before the camera. 
 Whereas at first they thought what they lost in power of vocal 
 expression they would gain in power of pantomime, they 
 soon found such was not the case. This truth was brought 
 home to me when Winthrop Ames produced "Pierrot the 
 Prodigal," exquisitely done in pantomime by the Belgian 
 actor, Paul Clerget, and a company of adequate players. It 
 was then that I was able to contrast the methods of real 
 pantomime with the methods used on the screen. It was 
 then forced in upon me that the moving-picture had utterly 
 failed in one vital particular. The art of pantomime is truly 
 mimetic, based on a keen appreciation of the external form 
 of inward emotion; but the pantomime of the moving-picture 
 is entirely kinetic. 
 
 Somewhere, I have come across the statement made by a 
 manager regarding waste in the film industry. It is worthy 
 of consideration. He said: "For every dollar spent in this 
 plant, at least fifty cents is lost in not driving to capacity. I 
 admit that a studio is not a factory, but can you picture any 
 mill business, for instance, where the operatives loaf on full- 
 time pay, while the owner, the designer, and the foreman 
 plan next year's patterns? Well, that is what we do in the 
 moving-picture game. We are forever wasting to-day's time, 
 
MOVING-PICTURE SINCE 1910 223 
 
 planning on something newer and bigger for to-morrow, next 
 week, next month, next year." 
 
 The manufacturers of moving-pictures have, in the past 
 five years, learned their lesson. They have become aware 
 of the necessity of paying attention to the art quality of a 
 picture. Inasmuch as they have lost what the medium of 
 the word gives in fine quality of psychology and in intellectual 
 stimulus, these managers now try to make up for the loss by 
 the greater time and attention paid to the pictorial value of the 
 scene. They also aim for the editorial timeliness of the topic. 
 Defining the characteristics of the moving-picture, Brian 
 Hooker states that it must remain a general or popular art; 
 being a photograph that moves, it has advanced beyond the 
 stage of mechanical novelty. In other words, people have 
 come to be more interested in the thing represented by move- 
 ment than in the actual mechanical movement. One empha- 
 sizes very rightly the big possibilities of the moving-picture 
 as an instrument for visualizing current events, keeping the 
 public in touch with daily happenings. In other words, the 
 "animated newspaper" is more and more being made pos- 
 sible by the reportorial use of the camera. Frederic C. Howe, 
 Commissioner of Immigration, was discerning when, in dis- 
 cussing the National Board of Censorship, and the work done 
 by the moving-picture in decreasing the patronage of the 
 saloons and in increasing the circulation of better books in 
 the Library, remarked : ** The moving-picture show is not only 
 Democracy's theatre; it is a great educational agency, and 
 it is likely to become a propagandist agency of unmeasured 
 possibilities." The newspaper quality of the moving-picture, 
 therefore, has been taken into consideration by the Board of 
 Censorship in the framing of certain specific rules governing 
 that body. 
 
 Nowhere has the value of the moving-picture, as a medium 
 of timeliness, been better illustrated (1917) than by the num- 
 
224 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 berless films sent direct from the front, showing the warring 
 nations. For the first time, history in action will be visualized 
 for generations to come — scenes taken not only from every 
 quarter of the land, but panoramic views taken by the aero- 
 plane corps. The moving-picture has placed before the 
 commanding generals information which the scouts of old 
 could never have gathered in so short a time. 
 
 It is here that one sees the democratic grip of the moving- 
 picture on the masses. But however much the pictures may 
 have improved as mere pictures, as stage groups, and in 
 their scenic effects, the fact still remains that, as a theatre 
 proposition, the moving-picture has not been able to outrival 
 finesse of acting or to rob the artist in the theatre of his 
 human value. 
 
 Scenarios made from plays which have met success on the 
 stage have more or less distorted every artistic value of the 
 drama. One can imagine what the manipulation of "Peter 
 Pan" on the screen would be. Mary Pickford's appearance 
 in Eleanor Gates's "The Poor Little Rich Girl'' is another 
 excellent example of how a delicate idea may be choked to 
 death. 
 
 I do not deny that it will be interesting for future genera- 
 tions, not having been able to witness certain actors, to have 
 in their possession such records as the moving-picture affords. 
 There is no doubt that such an actress as Madame Bernhardt 
 has always had a technique which the screen can preserve 
 apart from the value of her personality. It is to be regretted 
 that the moving-picture had not been brought to its present 
 pitch of excellence during the lifetime of Henry Irving or 
 Richard Mansfield, both men marked with mannerisms which 
 were surmounted by splendid technique. The romantic brag- 
 gadocio of Otis Skinner, as seen in such plays as Henry Arthur 
 Jones's "Cock o' the Walk" or Edward Knoblauch's "Kis- 
 met," might likewise be preservable in celluloid. But Mr, 
 
MOVING-PICtURE SINCE 1910 225 
 
 Skinner has not yet deserted the ranks, and even should he, 
 we doubt whether he will ever relinquish his conviction that, 
 however perfect the moving-picture, it will always lack the 
 human equation. To him one will always be witnessing the 
 operation of a machine. 
 
 Yet, in spite of its drawbacks, one cannot but recognize 
 that the moving-picture fills a decided place in a Democracy. 
 George Bernard Shaw, writing on the subject, suggests that 
 its interest lies " in the new opening for the mass of dramatic 
 talent formerly disabled by incidental deficiencies of one sort 
 or another that do not matter in the picture theatre." Such 
 may be the case, but the great handicap to the legitimate 
 stage has been that the moving-picture did not confine itself 
 to the services of those who were of no use in the legitimate 
 theatre. It has made ever-increasing inroads on those who 
 have dramatic talent. One can thoroughly agree with Mr. 
 Shav/ in the following isolated quotations taken from his 
 argument: "By accustoming the poorest playgoers to genu- 
 ine realism in scenery at so low a cost of representation and 
 reproduction that our film companies can afford to spend 
 sums on the original production that would ruin the most 
 princely actor-manager, it reduces the would-be deceptive 
 realistic scenery of the spoken drama to absurdity, both 
 artistically and economically, and thereby gives a powerful 
 and elevating impulse to the restoration of the conditions 
 under which the theatre attained its highest and freest 
 point. . . . The film drama will compete so successfully with 
 the spoken drama that it will drive it to its highest ground, 
 and close all paths to it except those in which its true glory 
 lies; that is, the path of high human utterance, of great 
 thoughts and great wit, of poesy and of prophecy." 
 
 One quite agrees with all that can be said in extenuation of 
 the value of the moving-picture. But so far it has not found 
 itself as an art; so far it has not defined its own particular 
 
226 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 realm except as an educational possibility; so far it has not 
 convinced us that it will ever be able to overcome, in dealing 
 with great art, the defect so well suggested in a simple ques- 
 tion asked by Mr. Shaw. That question is : " What becomes 
 of the difference between Shakespeare and Sheriden Knowles 
 on the film?" 
 
 With that, we leave the subject of moving-pictures to the 
 tender mercies of the moving-picture enthusiasts.^ 
 
 * That the subject of the moving-picture has received adequate 
 attention by the magazine writer is evident by consulting the 
 " Dramatic Index " for the past five years. The art of the cinema has 
 been treated in all of its phases. Two suggestive volimies are 
 those by Hugo Mtinsterberg on ''The Photoplay: A Psychological 
 Study," and Vachell Lindsay's "The Art of the Moving Picture." 
 Consult also: "The Magnates of the Motion Picture," by Isaac F. 
 Marcosson, Munsey, 48:209. "The Movies," by George Bernard 
 Shaw, Metropolitan Magazine, 42:23. "Actor Snatching and the 
 Movies," by Walter P. Eaton, American Magazine, 80:32. "Mov- 
 ing-Picture Authors," by Walter P. Eaton, American Magazine, 
 81:34. "The Art of the Moving-Picture Play," Clayton Hamilton, 
 Bookman, 23:512. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SHOULD THE POETIC DRAMA BE DRAMATIZED? 
 
 We are being constantly reminded of the inadequacy of 
 the so-called poetic drama to fill the essential demands of 
 the theatre; and, whenever the poetic drama fails to hold 
 the boards, we are prone to deplore the insufficiency of 
 public taste. Yet we are servile imitators, and show no 
 willingness to look behind the traditions with which we are 
 often shackled. There is a preconceived notion that some- 
 thing is lacking in the person who declaims against the 
 literary drama, the closet drama, or the poetic drama. Can- 
 dor makes us confess that there is as much ignorance on the 
 part of those who are against as of those who are for it. 
 The mistaken attitude assumed by both ranks is founded upon 
 a contradiction of terms and upon the identification of the 
 <;onventions of a type with the essence of the poetic principle. 
 
 In our consideration, we would not proceed as far as Poe 
 in that peculiar essay of his on " The American Drama," 
 where he suggests that " the first thing necessary is to burn 
 or bury the 'old models,' and to forget, as quickly as 
 possible, that ever a play has been penned;" we are too 
 thoroughly in advocacy of an historical perspective for 
 dramatic criticism. But we do believe with Coleridge that 
 "it is to be lamented that we judge of books (as well as of 
 plays) by books, instead of referring what we read to our 
 own experience." 
 
 All things of the theatre should be applied to the theatre. 
 
228 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 An unactable drama is a contradiction of terms; a poetic 
 drama is simply one phase of a larger and more inclusive 
 art. Very recently a college professor declared that the 
 " playhouse has no monopoly of the dramatic form/' while 
 another, in just refutation, called attention to the fact that 
 Byron, Landor, Shelley, Coleridge, Johnson, Tennyson, and 
 Browning, whose dramas are relegated to the closet, if not 
 to the shelf, wrote for the stage and failed. 
 
 There is only one thing intended for the playhouse, and 
 that is — drama; whatever its form, whatever its content, 
 it must satisfy the conditions through which it has elected 
 to reach the human spirit. To the university man we would 
 say that poetry has no monopoly of the poetic spirit; that 
 conventions have deceived us into believing the poetic 
 drama to consist of such rhythm, of such rhyme, of such 
 length, when in reality its vital measure is the exaltation of 
 the human spirit in the light of truth and beauty. 
 
 The modern theatre is focussing its rays closer and closer 
 upon life — never upon anything else; it makes no differ- 
 ence whether you are outside the veil with Ibsen peering 
 in; or inside the veil with Maeterlinck peering out — the 
 active being, spirit, intellect, or flesh is concerned with its 
 protagonist. 
 
 According to our idea, the poet has not only misinterpreted 
 the functions of drama, but has limited the essence of the 
 poetic to a manner of expression; he has not only been 
 content to deal with life in the abstract, but he has departed 
 from life in search for beauty. Despite these conditions 
 and these counter-elements, we are safe in claiming, none- 
 theless, that the time is propitious for the poetic drama. 
 It will never come from the poet who lacks the dramatic 
 sense, but it will be born of the dramatist in whom the poetic 
 impulse is quick. 
 
 Whenever a poet turns playwright, we may be sure that 
 
im^ ^^- 
 
 / 
 
 ":^ 
 
 Photo, by Byrd Studio, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Josephine Preston Peabody 
 
DRAMATIZING POETIC DRAMA 229 
 
 we are to be treated to a baffling maze of half-formed ideas. 
 It does not do to have the dramatist pause in his essential 
 stage structure in order to listen to his own music. The 
 stage is progressive, not contemplative; direct, not indefinite; 
 particular, not general. Remove from it the power to hold, 
 and it is no longer a theatre in the sense that people would 
 have it. 
 
 Such drama, I claim, is twice removed in its relationship 
 to the bare boards of the stage, by reason of its surcharged 
 beauty and by reason of its classic form. For the actor, it 
 is only an exercise in reading; for the audience, it has the 
 heavy odor of crowded flowers, badly arranged. The poet, 
 turned dramatist, is condescending toward the stage; and 
 he has added nothing to the theatre that it did not already 
 know; has gained nothing from the theatre, even though 
 there was much to gain. He has put poetry into the form of 
 drama, without having any drama in his poetry. 
 
 When Josephine Preston Peabody's ^ " The Piper " won 
 the Stratford prize, and was played at the Shakespeare 
 Memorial Theatre by Benson and his company, in the 
 Spring of 1910, many people proclaimed that blank verse 
 had come into its own again. No manager in America before 
 then would touch it for presentation, and it was once de- 
 clined by the New Theatre, which hastened later to pro- 
 duce it. There is much to say in extenuation of the American 
 attitude. "The Piper" is drama twice removed — because 
 of its beauty, and because of its form, loosely knit. There 
 is also a pronounced indefiniteness of idea. 
 
 Naturally, Mrs. Marks (Miss Peabody) has some justi- 
 fication in her confidence that she has given the stage a 
 notable poetic contribution; naturally she has theories 
 regarding the province of poetry on the stage. But her 
 
 » Mrs. Marks is also the authpr qi "Marlow^" (1901) mi "Th§ 
 Wiag8" (1905). s ^f - . . 
 
230 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 technical ideas are wrong, and not in accord with the mod- 
 ern practice of the theatre. Maybe, as a poet, she is right 
 in her practice, but it is a rock upon which she will even- 
 tually founder. She will there find the battered wrecks 
 of Thomas Bailey Aldrich's "Judith of Bethulia," of Percy 
 Mackaye's "Sappho and Phaon," wrecks beautiful in their 
 dramatic inertia, clogged with the passive beauty of simile 
 and metaphor. 
 
 " The Piper," as Mrs. Marks conceived it, had a supreme 
 evidence of vitality about it — its permanent legendary 
 character. We have the nursery interpretation of it in 
 picture books, in Jacob's "More English Fairy Tales" and 
 in Lang's "Red Fairy Book"; and we have Browning's 
 poem. But the structure of the piece, as Mrs. Marks con- 
 ceived it, detracts from the Piper's simple nature, from 
 his real historic character. In search for some deep phi- 
 losophy of life, the author mixes many minor stories of her 
 own invention into the main threads of an attractive legend, 
 and meanders through long and weary speeches. 
 
 "The Piper" is no play in the theatre sense, even though 
 the personality of such an actress as Miss Edith Wynne 
 Matthison has helped to make it a success. It might have 
 been greater, had Mrs. Marks not been the poet so utterly; 
 had she been willing to thrash out the meaning, and to remain 
 constant to one line of thought. And that is the danger of 
 poetry on the stage; it is too discursive and too full of un- 
 essential beauty. For this reason, Mr. Moody, who had 
 met with success in "The Great Divide" (1907) because 
 of its theatrical effectiveness, met with failure in "The 
 Faith Healer" (1909) because of its vagueness. 
 
 To-day two facts are evident: the realism which is sym- 
 bolized by Ibsen, and the symbolism which is realized by 
 Maeterlinck have not only intensified dramatic material 
 and narrowed external action, but they have opened a 
 
DRAMATIZING POETIC DRAMA 231 
 
 channel for the actor which only his genius can compass. 
 The worn-out models of the theatre have been confiscated, 
 along with the old-fashioned theatrical methods of inter- 
 pretation. Introspective significance has decreased the 
 violent reaction, and the most beautiful acting has now be- 
 come the most quiet acting. 
 
 How many of us have returned again and again to Lamb's 
 essay on the "Tragedies of Shakespeare," in which occurs 
 the significant passage, anent the impracticableness of 
 playing "Hamlet" — a passage which reads: "Nine parts 
 in ten of what Hamlet does are transactions between himself 
 and his moral sense," — transactions reduced to mere words 
 for the sake of the reader. This leads one to believe that 
 an Elizabethan commentator may some day issue an edition 
 of Shakespeare with passages, called by Lamb "silent 
 meditations," printed in italics to serve as psychological stage 
 directions, after the manner of Shaw. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is something in Lamb's argument. His 
 recent adherent is Maeterlinck, who likewise believes in 
 the unsuitableness of unseen forces for expressive interpre- 
 tation. They must be quietly realized. Lamb and Maeter- 
 linck have both found the theatre incapable of solving the 
 problem of meditation on the stage, yet the poetic drama 
 must of necessity deal with just those phases of character 
 and of destiny which are hardest to reconcile with custom 
 and habit and familiar, commonplace movement. 
 
 Dramatic literature of recent years represents a revulsion 
 from conventional notions which have grown up around 
 ancient models. Quotidian happenings in the development 
 of the individual have been raised to high dignity. All of 
 this change has brought a consequent change in the poetic 
 drama; the scope of the playwright has become wider with 
 the development throughout the world of more democratic 
 tendencies in society. The entire progression is indicated 
 
232 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 by Maeterlinck's statement that whereas once there was 
 no poetry in drama save that which narrated the passion of 
 a lover like Romeo or Tristan or Paolo, now a cottager 
 seated alone by a lighted lamp in the midst of the forces of 
 Fate, is more vitally true, and more profoundly significant 
 for us all. Violent activity must be attached to a spiritual 
 centre, to what Coleridge terms a point of relative rest. 
 
 The poetic drama is therefore in the process of adjustment; 
 when we demand it for our stage, we do so with precon- 
 ceived notions of literary excellence and of poetic fervor 
 which, when put to test, fail to stimulate the active curiosity 
 of external vision, and clog the dramatic progression by an 
 overplus of " sublime images," — in themselves demanding 
 a slow mind. Drama moves continuously; the poetic drama, 
 with its demand upon imagination, its appeal to the moral 
 judgment, and its lack of "corporal dimensions," requires 
 to be read. The mind of the reader must be allowed to turn 
 back; the mind of an audience can never turn back. 
 
 The poet who writes for the stage should ever remember 
 that the average theatre judges him by his explicit word; 
 through this is the implicit meaning caught. Most attempts 
 of the unskilled playwrights to deal with symbolism have 
 resulted in an inevitable quality of indefiniteness — mere 
 decoration without the fundamental surety of nature be- 
 neath. For even imagination has its consistency; we under- 
 stand only in so far as we ourselves have experienced. Hence, 
 when Lowell claimed that to be a mystic gave no one the 
 license to be misty, he meant that no matter how deeply 
 ingrained are the elements of life in art, they must not baffle 
 one who is sufficiently developed to be on that plane of 
 comprehension. 
 
 It is well to approach our subject from these various 
 indirect channels, for the poetic drama is not a special form, 
 per se; but, to our manner of thinking, any play in which 
 
DRAMATIZING POETIC DRAMA 233 
 
 humanity is raised to the heights of greatest spiritual ac- 
 tivity or fulfilment. Poetry, therefore, becomes only one 
 of the numerous factors that make drama what it is. Blank 
 verse does not constitute the poetic drama, though some 
 may think so; heightened speech, so beyond the realm of 
 consistent usage, is not its distinguishing mark. Poetry 
 may only hope to have its significant place on the stage 
 when it expresses spiritual quality and psychological strength, 
 amidst environment which allows of such intensive develop- 
 ment, and yet which remains familiar. 
 
 " Art for art's sake," said Mr. Heme, who in America has 
 thus far come nearest giving us the poetry of the common 
 life, "is mere decoration, but I will not take the truth for 
 truth's sake with the realist, unless it be the essential truth." 
 Hence, our new poetic drama will occupy a position much 
 like the oft-conceived " third empire," so carefully developed 
 by Ibsen; consistent art with consistent truth, art con- 
 sistent with truth, essential art with essential truth — these 
 are the statements. Ibsen has shown the vital meaning in 
 the common thing; Emerson has told the common man 
 of the vital thing. From the mystic and the realist com- 
 bined, we in America should be able to evolve a poetic drama. 
 We are not lacking the content but the form. 
 
 The inevitable conclusion stares us in the face. Our great 
 English poets wrote for the theatre, and most of them failed ; 
 Macready thrust Browning to the fore; Irving preserved 
 Tennyson for a while. It is wrong to say, as though there 
 were a constitutional incompatibility between the two, that 
 the reason why these men failed lay in the fact that liter- 
 ature is divorced from the stage. The real matter is that 
 the poet, however much he might love the theatre, has never 
 mastered the technique. The miniature painter and the 
 mural artist do not use the same brush, though the latter 
 might find it necessary at times to employ a hair line. 
 
234 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Shall we, therefore, have to confess that the poetic drama 
 needs to be dramatized. This is only a facetious way of 
 saying that out of a mass of beauty and fancy, of imagi- 
 nation and meditation, the poetic drama must be lifted into 
 a plane of kinship with common sense and human develop- 
 ment. In Chicago, as I have already noted, " Macbeth " 
 was given before a nickelodeon audience in moving-pictures; 
 the police had to stop the performance, so violent the action; 
 the whole spiritual quality of the piece had been sacrificed 
 for the shell. The poetic drama has suffered from the other 
 extreme ! 
 
 Coleridge, metaphysician though he was, nevertheless 
 realized the need for a reconciliation between characters as 
 they exist ordinarily with their manner and speech, and 
 the same characters idealized in proportion, stressed in 
 language, filling a large destiny rather than doing an ordin- 
 ary deed. Until Ibsen arrived, we had only a vague notion 
 as to the utilization of the commonplace on the stage; we 
 were told by the text-books that a play dealt only with the 
 significant moments in the development of the individual 
 — and by significant they meant violent or picturesque. 
 The melodramatists abused this idea, the romanticists and 
 sentimentalists conventionalized it. Then Ibsen, even 
 though tarred with the pitch of Scribe, wrote "A Doll's 
 House," and soon followed it with the white-heat realism 
 of "Ghosts," and brought the soul out of its shreds and 
 patches into the familiar light of day — familiar and some- 
 times cruel, though hardly unnecessary. 
 
 The little moments in life pulsed with vitality; Ibsen 
 used the ordinary speech of intercourse, and surcharged it 
 with spiritual intensity. Curiously, before Ibsen was known 
 in America, Mr. Heme had exemplified by his "Margaret 
 Fleming" what depths lay in the tragic of the common- 
 place; he had instinctively worked out for himself, despite 
 
DRAMATIZING POETIC DRAMA 235 
 
 the fact he was forced back into the old subterfuges of the 
 melodramatist, the whole theory of the active presence of 
 hidden forces — a recognition which quickens the entire 
 gamut of life and raises the ordinary into the realm of the 
 poetic. 
 
 When Mrs. LeMoyne presented " A Blot in the 'Scutch- 
 eon," the one of Browning's plays nearest stage require- 
 ments, the weight and beauty of the lines turned the audience 
 into passive listeners of something being read aloud. We 
 forgive in opera what we will not countenance in drama; 
 long recitative passages are colored by music which serves 
 as the necessary stimulant to emotion. The poetic drama 
 popularly conceived, needs to be relieved of its overweight. 
 Percy Mackaye's "Sappho and Phaon" and Stephen 
 Phillips's " Ulysses " suffered from this accentuation of beauty 
 to the detriment of motive power; Hauptmann's "The 
 Sunken Bell," with all the excellence of its symbolic texture, 
 dragged in the moralizing speeches which dulled the mind. 
 The same heaviness is evident in Ridgely Torrence's "El 
 Dorado" (1903) and "Abelard and Heloise" (1907). The 
 need for dramatization is commensurate with the wearying 
 effect upon the average audience. 
 
 Maeterlinck, after having tested a theory of the unex- 
 pressed in drama, so marvelously worked out in "The In- 
 truder," finally arrived at the conclusion that "whatever 
 the temptation, he [the dramatist] dare not sink into in- 
 activity, become mere philosopher or observer;" he learned 
 through experience with his "puppet theatre" that no 
 situation should be held in abeyance to profundity of speech. 
 The poet, according to Coleridge, has handicapped his success 
 in drama through certain self-conceit; he has forced the actor, 
 who is supposed to interpret character, to stand still and 
 read long descriptions of his own psychology, when, if he 
 be a real actor, he could have suggested all by a flash of 
 
236 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 expression or a gesture. It is true, as Henry Arthur 
 Jones intimates, that realism is only justifiable where there 
 is spiritual beauty beyond; poetic license has too often 
 tried to find justification in moral degradation, defying all 
 the laws of reality and of truth. 
 
 If this be so, we may turn to Shaw's comments on Shake- 
 speare, the essence of which is expressed in his belief that 
 wherever emotional climaxes are reached, " we find passages 
 which are Rossinian in their reliance on symmetry of melody 
 and impressiveness of march to redeem poverty of meaning." 
 His quarrel with the theatre of Shakespeare is our quarrel 
 with the general conception of the position poetry occupies 
 in drama. Most poets regard the drama, not as a reflex, a 
 transcript of life, but as a commentary on life, expressed 
 through the medium of dialogue; they subject everything 
 to their own artistic needs, believing, no doubt, that the 
 predominance of true poetry will cover up the lack of drama, 
 whereas it only serves to accentuate the fact that drama 
 is not there. 
 
 The commendable feature about William Vaughn 
 Moody's "The Great Divide" is found in his proper, though 
 not perfect, use of the poetic content in the dramatic mould; 
 it possesses elemental largeness, and its characters are hu- 
 man, retaining their average proportions in the midst of their 
 spiritual aspirations and expansion. Mr. Mackaye's "The 
 Scarecrow," based on Hawthorne, attempts almost success- 
 fully to combine the hidden force with the outward expression, 
 but he does not quite reach the texture of New England 
 conscience.^ 
 
 A surprising proportion of any poetic play deals either with 
 irrelevant imagery, or with mental introspection which 
 precedes action. From speech, it falls into declamation; 
 
 1 In its acted form, however, with Mr. Frank Reicher in the title 
 role, it was most effective. 
 
DRAMATIZING POETIC DRAMA 237 
 
 from character it passes into nothing more than a vehicle for 
 theory or poetic idea, cut aloof from the essential meaning 
 of the moment. That is what Israel Zangwill's " The Melt- 
 ing Pot" suffers from, apart from his abominable method 
 of seeking humor. His hero does not express the conviction 
 which lies within, but utters Mr. Zangwill's apostrophes 
 upon that migration of races whose fusion will some day 
 constitute the American people. A note of insincerity 
 results where bombast predominates; Dickens's American 
 Eagle crying ha, ha! is not an agreeable picture. Yet speech 
 after speech, poetic in scope, was thrust upon Zangwill's 
 hero relentlessly. 
 
 We know that life is greater than drama; that art, what- 
 ever its form, is only a means of expressing our comprehension 
 of the life in which we find ourselves. But most of our poets 
 who have attempted drama have not realized how close 
 to life drama really is. It is not a vehicle, but an expression; 
 it does not hold, but it gives out. "Peter Pan" represents 
 the genius of Barrie, dramatizing Wordsworth's "Heaven 
 lies about us in our infancy," in terms of common experience 
 and of eternal truth. "What Every Woman Knows" and 
 "Quality Street" do not' defy the laws of the familiar, yet 
 both plays are shot through with the poetry of sentiment. 
 
 Far from disparaging the poetic drama, we claim that 
 our stage thirsts for it. Yet we do not blame the manager 
 for being wary of the conventional form, which has neither 
 profited by Maeterlinck nor learned of Ibsen. The pulse of 
 life throbs through the land; there is in our mundane exist- 
 ence the call to higher things; from the wheat fields year 
 after year comes the cry for labor — the epic cry from the 
 soil. The poet stands confused before the dilemma. " How," 
 he questions, "shall I reconcile the poetic language with 
 the man of wage, with the machinery of utility, with the 
 average moments of life?" Man has his exalted feelings. 
 
238 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 even when his feet are firmly planted upon earth. I remem- 
 ber once walking along a country road with Clyde Fitch; 
 we passed a fleshy, grimy beer-driver in the open field, with 
 a flower in his apology for a buttonhole. "There," said 
 Mr. Fitch, "is the poetry of ordinary existence." 
 
 At supreme moments, language, thought, spirit, become 
 supreme. The blacksmith may talk in the poetry of his 
 uncouth prose; but no one can take from him the purity 
 of his feeling when his feeling is pure, or the high resolution 
 of his character, when circumstance and situation prompt 
 it to act, or the strength of his primal being when he is strong. 
 The poet must not mould his character to suit a precon- 
 ceived notion; in drama one must be true to life rather 
 than to the conventions of art. We know of no form for the 
 theatre other than drama — drama which is divided into 
 relative grades, dependent upon the predominance of certain 
 artistic qualities. Even in dealing with the unseen, Maeter- 
 linck never fails to refer to "active" forces. Only on rare 
 occasions does the average person speak aloud to himself; 
 that is why the soliloquy has fallen into ill-favor. And so, 
 one by one, the conventions of drama are disproven. 
 
 We need another name for that play which we have been 
 accustomed to call "poetic drama"; we need to discover 
 that the old form has falsified beauty, since it has taken it 
 away from character, from life. Only when we have written a 
 real drama in which poetry occupies its essential position 
 in relation to life, will we cease in our belief that the poetic 
 drama needs to be dramatized. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT, AND FOOTLIGHT 
 
 It is a healthy condition for us to have reached in drama, 
 when we become conscious of its presence in the community, 
 and when we are furthermore made aware of its power, 
 both positive and negative. For after all, it is not through 
 accident that the theatre was established, but as a result 
 of the fundamental instinct for expression and as a symbol 
 of some over-towering emotion, within the experience of 
 us all. The old tribal vocero, or songs of grief, so excellently 
 discussed by Professor Gummere, while more primitive 
 in form and more elemental in idea than the modern civic 
 response to condition, are not so very far removed in the 
 communal pyschology which necessitated them, from the 
 present social response which Le Bon has analyzed in his 
 treatise on " The Crowd." ^ 
 
 Hence, the theatre is founded upon what might almost 
 be termed an immutable masonry of human need. We could 
 change Pinero's wisdom in "Mid-Channel," and direct it to 
 our ends by saying that since man and woman and the shape 
 of a hen's egg are the constant facts of life, the theatre is 
 
 1 See chapter in Clayton Hamilton's "The Theory of the 
 Theatre" on "The Psychology of Theatre Audiences," pp. 30-58; 
 also W. P. Eaton's "The American Stage of To-day," in which 
 there is a chapter on "Crowds and Mr. Hamilton," pp. 282-90; 
 also Professor Brander Matthews' "A Study of the Drama," Chap- 
 ter IV, "The Influence of the Audience," pp. 68-91. 
 
240 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 placed beyond human endowment, and finds its sanction 
 in, nay more, is coincident with, the very act of living. 
 
 There is no doubt that we have, for the instant, lost sight 
 of the reasons why the theatre exists, even though we are 
 growing more and more conscious of its importance as a 
 social institution and as a cultural and an educational force; 
 we are also not quite sure in our minds whether we have a 
 right to enjoy what we enjoy, even though public decency 
 bars "The Moulin Rouge" from the theatre, and establishes 
 a censorship for moving-pictures. 
 
 In our attitude toward the playhouse, we are constantly 
 contradicting ourselves, possibly because we find, with 
 Goethe, that it is easier to do than to think. That is char- 
 acteristic of communal restlessness, if Le Bon is right in 
 his assertion that an idea must be transmuted into action; 
 therefore, excessive sentiment and symbols are representa- 
 tive of popular taste. 
 
 The theatre is not only a source of amusement, but it 
 should be a source of the right kind of amusement; that is 
 the only way in which it will ever become permanently 
 instructive; through vital interest rather than through set 
 and deadly purpose will it ever hope to mould public opinion. 
 If the Mayor of Philadelphia was over-cautious in prohibit- 
 ing the New Theatre company from presenting Galsworthy's 
 "Strife" in that city, for fear that its labor motive would 
 draw fire from the car strikers then at war (1910), the New 
 Theatre was unwise in heralding its mission — which was 
 to clear the atmosphere of Philadelphia with a little of Gals- 
 worthy's philosophy about capital and labor. 
 
 Yet the incident is significant, for it points to one of the 
 essential functions of the theatre — to prompt civic thought; 
 and it likewise indicates its true relation to the civic body. 
 It is necessary to emphasize these conditions, inasmuch 
 as our present discussion is to deal with communal con^ 
 gGiousne§§ of art and eivlc interest ia art. 
 
SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT, FOOTLIGHT 241 
 
 Never, within the past twenty years, have we had more 
 cause to be encouraged than over the present status of drama 
 in this country. This is not due to the efforts of the Froh- 
 mans, the Shuberts, or any other theatrical concern, although 
 many of their productions have been good; it is not because 
 of the existence of a New Theatre, though the presence of 
 such an institution was an incentive to high endeavor; it 
 is not due to the special faddist who takes up drama, though 
 such patronizing may improve the dilettante without harm- 
 ing the theatre. But beneath these outward activities flows 
 the deep and abiding current of our natures, and when a 
 whole people's sense of life becomes quickened, when its 
 intelligence grows keener, its emotion more clearly defined, 
 its specific knowledge of an institution more marked — in 
 other words, when there is centred upon the theatre, as 
 emanating from an interested public, a radium spot of under- 
 standing, the civic consciousness smarts under the necessity 
 for maintaining some standard of theatrical taste. 
 
 At first glance, this condition may not be evident, but 
 we only have to ask ourselves why — apart from public 
 love of novelty — we are interested in revivals, to reach 
 some basis for hope that our theatre public has awakened 
 from its slothfulness, its indifference, its prejudice. There 
 were profound humanity and deep, universal spirituality 
 in "Everyman" when first it was brought to this country; 
 no amount of archaeology could destroy its universal ap- 
 plication. There was delicate realization of the poetry of 
 motion, when the Greek dances, so charmingly interpreted 
 by Isadora Duncan, were first offered to the public. The 
 fact that these dances have been overdone to the point of 
 gross suggestiveness does not alter our belief in the dance 
 as an undying expression of communal emotion. 
 
 In the history of the past ten years, the many revivals, 
 offered to the theatre-goers have developed an interest in 
 
242 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the historical phase of the drama, have encouraged the 
 collegiate body to reproduce — in the spirit of accuracy — 
 old dramas, rather than waste energy on some pale imitation 
 of the conventional comic opera. Hence we find the Yale 
 Dramatic Association presenting Ibsen's "The Pretenders" 
 and Sheridan's "The Critic," while the New York City 
 College has spent commendable effort on Massenger's "A 
 New Way to Pay Old Debts." Not to be outdone, for Ben 
 Greet is the real, true father of this archaic impulse in America, 
 as William Poel is in England, the Greet Players have ap- 
 peared in Marlowe's " Dr. Faustus." You may ask if this has 
 any appreciable effect upon public taste. The result may 
 not be immediate, but the impress on public consciousness, 
 however slight, is nevertheless apparent.^ 
 
 1 Professor George P. Baker of Harvard University, and Profes- 
 sor Brander Matthews of Columbia University, give distinctive 
 courses in drama to their students. The Harvard Dramatic Club 
 was the first organization to present Percy Mackaye's "The Scare- 
 crow." On the historical side of Professor Baker's work, Mr. Mac- 
 kaye, Jules Goodman, author of "Mother," Miss Beulah Marie Dix, 
 part-author of a fantastical piece called "The Road to Yester- 
 day," Miss Josephine Preston Peabody, Winthrop Ames, 
 former director of The New Theatre, John Corbin, and W. P. 
 Eaton were students. Five years ago a course in dramaturgic 
 technique was started, resulting in the success of Edward Sheldon 
 author of "Salvation NeU," "The Nigger," and "The Boss." To 
 further this technical training, the Macdowell Club has estab- 
 lished at Harvard a Macdowell Fellowship for the encouragement 
 of young playwrights. Professor Robert W. Herrick of the Uni- 
 versity of Chicago, gives courses in dramatic composition and in 
 the analysis of plays. It will be remembered also that William 
 Vaughn Moody came from the University of Chicago. 
 
 Whereas Professor Baker's method deals with the theory of 
 drama, Professor Matthews adheres to the historical side, well 
 indicated in his book, "A Study of the Drama." Not that he 
 ignores the physical aspects of the theatre, but he believes that 
 the very physical outlines of the playhouse limit the play. Under 
 his tutelage, William De Mille, Louis E. Shipman, George Middleton, 
 and George Broadhurst, have met with success. In this matter of the 
 university's interest in drama, it is well to note that Syracuse Uni- 
 
SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT, FOOTLIGHT 243 
 
 Let us confess that some of these revivals, though in- 
 structive, are wearisome. They are not as diverting as Nora 
 Bayes singing "Kelly'* in "The Jolly Bachelors," or as 
 Blanche Ring singing " Yip-i-yaddy " in "The Midnight 
 Sons." If, in some respects, they seem far away from us, 
 the reason is very largely technical. As Professor Matthews 
 has shown in his most recent book on the drama, ^ a play is 
 intimately related to the stage for which it was originally 
 written. The changes which are requisite in a Shakespeare 
 text for the modern stage are indicative in a measure of the 
 differences between the Globe Theatre and the New Theatre. 
 It is quite a natural consequence that Mrs. Patrick Campbell 
 should fail to convey the Greek spirit, when, within the 
 frame of a proscenium arch, she presented a poor English 
 translation of a German version of "Electra," instead of 
 Gilbert Murray's translation of the original. But let the 
 proper setting be employed with the latter, as is possible 
 in the Greek amphitheatre at the University of California, 
 and it is not so difficult to impress one with the proportion 
 and unity and unerring beauty of an ancient drama, even 
 though its conventions are no longer incumbent, and its 
 manner far removed. 
 
 We have dropped many adjuncts of the theatre because 
 we have tried to limit the world of drama to the horizon 
 of the footlights. We have devoted ourselves so insistently 
 to subtle considerations of the clash of individual will with 
 individual will, that we have let slip an expression of art 
 which results from such a principle as Le Bon's that "col- 
 
 versity produces original plays; that H. J. Savage of Tufts College, 
 Professor Gayley of the University of California, Professor Richard 
 Burton of the University of Minnesota, Professor W. L. Phelps 
 of Yale University, Professor F. W. Chandler of the University of 
 Cincinnati, and Professor S. M. Tucker of the Brooklyn Poly- 
 technic, are actively engaged in furthering the work. 
 ^ " A Study of the Drama." Houghton, 1910. 
 
244 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 lectivities alone are capable of great disinterestedness and 
 great devotion." 
 
 In other words, while the modern drama is attempting 
 through types to appeal to an ever increasing aggregate of 
 individuals, our theatre is ignoring the communal joys and 
 sorrows, hopes and fears, with which all peoples of the 
 same nation are endowed. Du Maurier's " An Englishman's 
 Home" could not stand close, logical analysis, but granted 
 its premises, and it is easy to understand why it stirred 
 the patriotism of Great Britain. It is the melodrama of 
 life which appeals to the crowd. 
 
 If one reads dramatic history correctly, therefore, it is 
 very evident that while forms change and the methods of 
 appeal alter, the psychology of the crowd remains funda- 
 mentally the same. Not only is this true, but even though 
 our audiences are herded together under the same roof, and 
 no longer, as a general rule, cling to the hillside beneath a 
 clear sky, they go to the Hippodrome as of yore, even though 
 the spectacle is less violent than the ancient one; they 
 witness Ibsen's "Ghosts," not realizing its nearness to 
 "CEdipus"; they applaud Pavlowa and Mordkin, and are 
 gripped by the ecclesiasticism of the Middle Ages, found in 
 Maeterlinck's "Sister Beatrice." 
 
 The footlights, the picture frame of the proscenium arch, 
 the orchestra, all tend toward making the theatre more 
 intimate and more subtle. Hence, in the legitimate drama 
 there is a group sentiment rather than a communal sweep, 
 a more calculating effect or artifice than appeals to a great 
 crowd. In fact, the more delicate an actor's art, the more 
 limited his immediate influence, as far as the numbers of 
 his audience are concerned. No one could regard the exten- 
 sive spectacle of Schiller's "The Maid of Orleans," as given 
 by Miss Maude Adams before fifteen thousand spectators 
 in the Harvard Stadium, as anything more than an interesting 
 
SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT, FOOTLIGHT 245 
 
 pageant, totally unsuited for any other than visual effect. 
 When the city of Gloucester, Massachusetts, celebrated in 
 1909 its founding by iui elaborate fete, during which Percy 
 Mackaye's "Canterbury Pilgrims'^ was mounted in gorgeous 
 processional, another fifteen thousand were moved in the 
 spirit of popular appreciation of broad color and large en- 
 semble. In neither of these attempts did the interest proceed 
 deeper than that created by novelty, but both of them to 
 a great extent suggested the possibility of a communal art, 
 distinctively American in its image and in its historical 
 significance. 
 
 Shall the theatre, therefore, be taken at times from the 
 footlight into the sunlight and the moonlight? Is that the 
 quickest and best way of developing a civic consciousness 
 of theatrical art? We look back on the Hudson-Fulton 
 celebration (1909), with its water pageant rather devoid of 
 intent in the day, but brilliantly aglow at night, with its 
 floats far less artistically conceived than the Mardi Gras 
 groups in New Orleans, and we wonder whether this carry- 
 ing of the art impulse into the open, beneath the sunlight 
 or the moonlight, will tend to sharpen civic appreciation, or 
 simply to cater to a liking for bulk. For even a processional 
 demands the preservation of sequence as well as the main- 
 tenance of association; it necessitates the participation of 
 citizens rather than the employment of professional actors. 
 
 Once more we have Ben Greet to thank for turning our 
 eyes from the footlight to the sunlight and the moonlight. 
 It was about seven years ago that, with the inestimable 
 assistance of Miss Edith Wynne Matthison, he brought 
 Shakespeare into the open, and the warm sunlight of a sum- 
 mer afternoon played fitfully on Rosalind's hair, while in the 
 evening the moon suffused "A Midsummer Night's Dream" 
 with a fairy quality which no incandescence could effect. 
 
 That initial impulse was followed later by other move- 
 
246 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 ments. It encouraged colleges to amateur endeavor; it 
 made possible the Coburn Players; it suggested festivals 
 to small communities and to social groups in crowded quarters 
 of our cities. In other words, though we harked back to 
 the archaic, we realized that it was only to pick up some art 
 instinct which might just as well be developed to-day as it 
 was in the time when guilds were civically responsible for 
 their parts in royal and religious processionals. 
 
 This latest evidence of revival, therefore, is not in a true 
 sense a revival, but a resumption of communal expressive- 
 ness. Throughout the country there is an incentive to sym- 
 bolize historic association — at the opening of a bridge, in 
 commemoration of the discovery of a river, in celebration 
 of a country's past, or in the tercentenary of a city *s founding. 
 There is every reason to believe that such an impulse, sanely 
 directed, will become properly instructive, and will exert an 
 influence on popular taste. 
 
 When art is brought into the sunlight it must be buoyant 
 and not self-conscious; it has to shape itself, not to the one, 
 two, three of theatrical mechanism, but to the pulsating 
 vagaries of nature. Rosalind's voice must be suited to the 
 twitter of winging birds, her laugh must wait upon the echo 
 of itself. I have seen " Twelfth Night" in the starlight, when 
 the actors* voices were resonant with a peculiar aloofness, 
 accentuated by swaying trees and by the expressive silence 
 of sleeping things. Nature seems to play with art in the 
 open; that is why art must play with nature. For sunlight 
 tends toward the real emotion and moonlight toward the 
 dreams of an exalted spirit, while both demand that artifice 
 approach nearer and nearer to the essence of art, and that 
 the shadow of a feeling be as expressive as the shadow of 
 a leaf. 
 
 The time has arrived for us to make use of our natural 
 resources in our communal expression* This does not mean 
 
SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT, FOOTLIGHT 247 
 
 that we must desert the theatre, that we must discount 
 the foothght. It simply means that we must not waste the 
 opportunities offered by the sun and moon. It means that 
 in our public education we must be made conscious of the 
 fact that Nature furnishes us with stage accessories which 
 only a communal drama may utilize. The members of the 
 Bohemian Club in California, with their red-wood forest, 
 have revelled in this consciousness since 1878. 
 
 Only years will prove whether or not this communal 
 interest will some day result in a special folk-drama, a special 
 folk-music, a special folk-dance, a special folk-pageant. 
 Our contention is that the time is just as propitious now 
 as it ever was in any period of dramatic history. It is only 
 the footlight that has really changed, that typifies theatrical 
 convention. We are just waking up to the fact that we have 
 let slip a valuable asset in art; we have done that, even though 
 we hear everywhere the necessity for our being in harmony 
 with Nature. The Greeks utilized sunlight and moonlight 
 in their communal expression; but we, in accord with our 
 general wastefulness of natural resources, have been artisti- 
 cally blind to all but the incandescent bulb. 
 
 When audiences take to the open, their amusements expand 
 to accord with the space around them. An entirely different 
 set of values has to be reckoned with. The open invites 
 only that kind of entertainment which harmonizes with the 
 peace and quiet of the hills on one hand, and with the majesty 
 and beauty of the scenery on the other. The Greeks drew 
 religion and tragedy from the secret sources of Nature; they 
 conducted their dances, they sang their Bacchic choruses, 
 they celebrated their national sentiment beneath the blue 
 sky. 
 
 Let us suppose that a stadium was to be erected in New 
 York City. Would an open-air theatre have any appreciable 
 effect upon theatrical condition? Would it create any 
 
248 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 special type of dramatist, other than poets to compose 
 choral odes, like those Percy Mackaye created for his father's 
 dream, "Columbus"? Such a playhouse could have no 
 influence whatever upon the conventional theatre, save 
 in so far as pageantry and patriotism might raise the art 
 ideals of the crowd and the honesty of the citizen. In the 
 open air, we can never hope to have the same class of play 
 that is given us in the closed-in theatre. Out of doors 
 demands something strictly pictorial. For subtlety is lost 
 where largeness is demanded, and delicacy of manner has 
 to give way before charm of movement. "The School for 
 Scandal" would scarcely set well on the greensward stage. 
 
 Yet masques and carnivals and pageants and civic parades 
 are necessary in the life of a people, and a public stadium 
 might revive old customs and vivify old manners. The 
 open-air theatre invites a new drama and encourages an 
 old form. Some day, Americans may find themselves with 
 a new pageantry of such magnitude that children can learn 
 their history from panorama more real than that now given 
 them in the moving-picture, and as resplendent as that 
 sustained by the mediaeval guilds or by the Elizabethan 
 Courts. On public holidays, the theatre in the open air 
 affords the dramatist a new outlet for expression of an 
 expansive kind. 
 
 But in order to have this pageantry of high excellence, 
 a species of pageant-master, such as Percy Mackaye has 
 repeatedly described, will have to be trained. And one of 
 the first things he will have to do will be to keep the poet 
 within bounds, for the greensward stage has its limitations, 
 as well as the legitimate theatre. Yet a well-trained pageant- 
 master, even though we are striving for sane celebration of 
 Independence Day and effective demonstration on Columbus 
 Day, is not as necessary for us to have as well-trained stage 
 managers for our roofed playhouses. People flock to the 
 
SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT, FOOTLIGHT 249 
 
 hillside for a game of football or baseball, and they go to the 
 parks for music only when they are not scared away from 
 the parks by programs too classical for their tastes. 
 
 People participate in pageantry when there is an anni- 
 versary of civic import. They are sure to seek the open 
 for amusement of a democratic sort. Yet, in order to give 
 people drama at minimum cost, which seems to be the aim 
 of social workers, it is not necessary to go to the open as the 
 only means, especially when the medium of Nature does not 
 invite the modern drama distinctive of our day. 
 
 The Civic Theatre^ has been debated as often as a National 
 Theatre, and some reformers have even gone so far as to 
 seek a Theatre of Ideas, as though there were such a thing. 
 What New York has debated is a stadium, run as our parks 
 are run, only with the endeavor to keep it in touch with 
 the theatrical life of the city. In one way, this might re- 
 move the drama of a spectacular kind from the hands of 
 the commercial manager, and place it in control of politicians. 
 A Tammany play might lead to the revival of an old-time 
 custom of the riot, such as used to occur on the London stage 
 when the pit reigned supreme! 
 
 The Hippodrome has for several years past presented 
 large splashes of color, and has proven a success only when 
 it has stayed away from the spoken word. We hear much 
 about what an educational institution might do for the 
 theatre, but has any institution ever approached the Shu- 
 berts and asked them to mount an historical pageant on 
 the Hippodrome stage? 
 
 It is well for a city to drive citizens more into the open, 
 
 1 It is well to recall the excellent endeavor on the part of the late 
 Charles Sprague Smith, Director of the People's Institute, New 
 York City, to cooperate with the theatrical managers. Reduced 
 prices were offered to school children and wage earners, and plays 
 were recommended by a committee. The idea was well meaning, but 
 met with many handicaps. 
 
250 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 to educate them in the ways of Nature. To do that, there 
 are better means than by taking the theatre and making it sub- 
 servient to Nature. The pageant is educational as the col- 
 lege revivals are educational. But Nature demands a play 
 in accord with her own humor. "As You Like It" is typical 
 of this — and with her own setting, " A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream" is such a piece. A drama that will train 
 the citizen's ear to the trill of a lark is certainly a drama 
 for all nations, but the hope for a national drama does not 
 lie in the open-air theatre, even though the hope of the poet 
 might rest upon a stadium ode or a pageant choral. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 
 
 The American theatre has created no special form of drama; 
 it has not even been original in its rhythm of expression. 
 It has modified types, it has infused much picturesque 
 detail into local condition, it has expressed rather crudely 
 all that is meant by American " uplift," but it has done so 
 in form imitative of English and Continental examples. 
 
 But at the present time the American theatre-goer is 
 becoming conscious of form, inasmuch as ideas are in the 
 air which cannot be satisfied with the old moulds. If Au- 
 gustus Thomas had any spark of mysticism about him, he 
 would express his belief in telepathy through other channels 
 than direct narrative; if the comic opera librettist had been 
 brought up in the school of W. S. Gilbert, his "book" would 
 be more than a transitory vehicle; if the dramatist who 
 turns novels into plays only realized that even a drama- 
 tization has a technique and a unity apart from the novel 
 itself, there would be fewer failures in that direction. 
 
 The time is ripe for new form, and the only way in which 
 we can determine what that shall be is to determine the 
 real, true meaning of fundamental principles underlying 
 the art. In our day we have seen changes and modifications 
 in several forms; we have even witnessed the creation of 
 special moulds for special amusements. Melodrama rose 
 to a certain pitch of violence, then waned; musical comedy 
 
252 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 developed to a certain point and remained there; rag-time 
 music shaped a lyric as ungainly as the cake-walk dance; 
 vaudeville, through the efforts of Tony Pastor and later 
 of Proctor and Keith, was evolved from the variety. Yet, 
 as regards the latter, we have seen it persist, not only in 
 vaudeville, but in comic opera as well. 
 
 It is only in the minor forms of theatrical art that we 
 have retrograded. In this very problem of comic opera, 
 we have reverted far from such a type of musical entertain- 
 ment as Gilbert and Sullivan used to give. Music, song, 
 and dance are welded together in a "show" that depends 
 more on its topical "hit" than on any meaning the piece as 
 a whole might have. Musical comedy is now nothing more 
 nor less than the means of exploiting vaudeville reputation 
 and variety glitter. 
 
 In fact, modern musical comedy is a hybrid type, of 
 which the original was John Gay's " The Beggar's Opera " 
 (1728), and it allows one to introduce any feature into the 
 entertainment without disturbing the plot. Ask Harry 
 B. Smith, author of "Rob Roy," "Robin Hood," "The 
 Fortune Teller," and "The Wizard of the Nile"; Henry 
 Blossom, who wrote the " books" for "The Yankee Consul," 
 "Mile. Modiste," and "The Red Mill"; Frank Pixley, 
 who did "The Burgomaster," "King Dodo," and "The 
 Prince of Pilsen" — they will tell you that the chief difficulty 
 is in "boosting" a "book" after it is written, in securing 
 the proper interpolated lyrics. George V. Hobart not only 
 turns out scores of these flimsy " books," but he is regarded 
 as a general renovator. Musical comedy is in constant 
 need of a steady stream of oxygen. 
 
 Fortunes are made in the musical comedy field. The 
 cooperation of Edgar Smith with Weber and Fields; of 
 John McNally with the Roger Brothers; the individual 
 coups of Glen Macdonough's "The Wizard of Oz" and 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 253 
 
 "Babes in Toyland," of Owen Hall's "Florodora," of Hugh 
 Morton's "The Belle of New York" — these are sufficient 
 evidences of the popularity of the form, apart from its perma- 
 nence or its quality. The facts are these. George Ade's 
 "The Sultan of Sulu" was anly a moderate success, yet it 
 brought him an income. George M. Cohan, librettist, 
 composer, and actor, whose songs sell also in the music 
 stores, netting him a royalty, has been known to draw over 
 three thousand dollars weekly as a librettist alone. That 
 is what "Little Johnny Jones," "Forty-five Minutes from 
 Broadway," and "Yankee Doodle" have done for him. 
 
 But there is not one of these librettists or of these com- 
 posers whose work will withstand more than a decade. 
 There is no "book" that will have the vitality of Gilbert's 
 "Patience," or "H. M. S. Pinafore," or "The Mikado." 
 Not one of these names will outlast more than two gener- 
 ations, whereas Meilhac and Halevy are unmistakably 
 identified with Bizet and Prosper M^rimee in "Carmen." 
 Even such a transplanted and effective piece as Lehar's 
 "The Merry Widow" will be imitated, until the imitations 
 dim its freshness. For the " book " is poor. 
 
 Experience shows that musical comedy abhors consistency; 
 it is a loose type, even as vaudeville is a loose type. These 
 forms are full of tricks. Vaudeville, it is true, has become 
 legitimitized by the introduction of the high-class artist, 
 who gives a form of play in which our American dramatist 
 would do well to indulge; I mean, the playlet. And the 
 custom has now become so fixed, that the best actor, no 
 matter what his winter's work may be, does not disdain the 
 comfortable fortune awaiting him in a few weeks' vaude- 
 ville. In this way Henry Miller has utilized Clyde Fitch's 
 "Frederic Lemaitre." Vaudeville, however, has the per- 
 nicious effect of moving-pictures; the audience is not held 
 by any unified or consecutive interest; it is, in fact, almost 
 
254 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 as casual as frequenters of the nickelodeon playhouses. 
 Out from vaudeville has come excellent material, not of 
 the variety type, but of the art type. Chevalier and Lauder 
 and Genee have danced and sung, Mrs. Campbell has acted, 
 and historians like to call to mind the days when even 
 Edwin Booth did not disdain to blacken his face, or Edwin 
 Forrest to dance a jig. 
 
 The chief characteristics of vaudeville will remain, how- 
 ever much its good points are abused by the variety inheri- 
 tance. It is a form dependent on one^s like for disassociation 
 of ideas; it is amusement cultivating nervous strain rather 
 than resulting in permanent effect. 
 
 The dramatization of novels cannot be called a new form, 
 for Shakespeare looms in the past, an inimitable adapter 
 of the conte. Professor Matthews, in his "Pen and Ink," 
 has a suggestive chapter on this process, and we note that 
 it has become a custom in every country to benefit by the 
 inventive faculty of the novelist. For, while I cannot agree 
 with Paul M. Potter, adapter of "Trilby," that the pas- 
 sionate story is all an audience seeks, I do believe that an 
 interesting story, in novel form, might be very well utilized 
 by the dramatist, but, mind you, in the dramatist's way. 
 In other words, the latter must take liberties with the former, 
 in so far as the technique of the latter differs from that of 
 the former. 
 
 Mr. Potter is rash when he claims that the drama is not 
 dependent upon the intellectual element. But it is easy 
 to fall into platitudes, and Mr. Potter's belief that "if the 
 feelings of the audience are rightly moved, the play suc- 
 ceeds," has nothing to prove. For audiences are moved 
 intellectually as well as passionately, and, what is more, 
 they have a common spirit which passion only indirectly 
 appeals to. When one looks back on "The Eternal City," 
 " The Only Way," " The Prisoner of Zenda," " When Knight- 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 255 
 
 hood was in Flower," "Janice Meredith," and countless 
 other dramatizations, when one regards the work of Potter, 
 of Rose, of Kester, and of an increasing host, one is tempted 
 to beheve that dramatization has become a form — a manu- 
 factured form — readily manipulated, but built only to last 
 a season. We have seen how often the American dramatist 
 has either dramatized or adapted. Boucicault lived upon 
 the process; it even dulled his originality, though it did 
 not paralyze his resources of inventiveness. 
 
 But the ease with which novels have been turned into plays 
 has presented a mistaken idea to the novelist regarding the 
 stage. The process has been detrimental to the drama as 
 well as to the novel. There is no reason, however, why 
 lasting plays should not be taken from books, save that 
 where there is a slavish dependence upon the story as told, 
 there is a consequent lack of intensity and of close technique. 
 The reading public scares the dramatizer, for when a book 
 is popular, and only popular books are dramatized, the 
 dramatist has to keep faith with what the public already 
 knows. 
 
 II 
 
 I do not think that it is so necessary for the student of 
 American drama to trace minutely the varying forms in 
 which drama expresses itself. It is enough that we are 
 imitative in farce, in comedy, in social drama, in the problem 
 play, in every form imported from abroad. What should 
 concern us, however, is a subject that narrows itself down 
 to two points: comedy on one hand, and tragedy on the 
 other. How fare these with us, not as form, but as spirit; 
 not as convention, but as attitude, as national outlook? 
 
 If our American humor is what we claim it to be, then 
 our comedy should be rich. And no one may complain of 
 this, remembering Mark Twain, George Ade, »nd Feter F, 
 
256 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Dunne (Mr. Dooley). If our American sanity is a fact, then 
 our recognition of the Tragic Spirit, as opposed to the special 
 form of tragedy, must be pronounced. Our American drama- 
 tists of the closet drama employed the old classic form of 
 catastrophe, but that has passed out of date with the coming 
 of modern technique. Our early American humorists gave 
 types caricatured as we have seen in Sellers, in Solon Shingle, 
 and in others, but the human view, which lies at the basis 
 of realism, has modified every form of comedy and tragedy, 
 and there is only left the deep and abiding spirit of each 
 with which to cope. 
 
 Ill 
 
 There is no business more speculative than that of defi- 
 ning things; lexicographers are not given the prophetic 
 vision, and only one, so far, — Dr. Johnson — has possessed 
 the literary sense. No matter what limitation we place 
 upon the meaning of a word, time overrides it and creates 
 a periodic point of view. 
 
 Since Aristotle framed his classic definition of tragedy, we 
 have been called upon to reckon with drama in terms of 
 Shakespeare on one hand, and in terms of Ibsen and Maeter- 
 linck on the other. Literary history has taught us to be 
 wary of declaring old formulae useless. Hence, there has 
 become evolved a type of criticism which is more interesting 
 because of its angle of vision than because it throws any 
 deep and abiding light upon the fundamental starting-point. 
 
 Professor Ashley Thorndike wrote a volume for a series 
 called "The Types of English Literature," and he gave it 
 the inclusive title of "Tragedy." What the reader finds to 
 be the case is, that beginning with certain general premises, 
 he discusses the modifications attendant upon all practice, 
 and in this case subject to national characteristics. And, 
 after reading through the chapters, a truth is impressed 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 257 
 
 upon us: tragedy, as a mere form, is not constant, but is 
 a convention of art, subject to conventional social ideas 
 and ideals. The Tragic Spirit behind the sequence of things, 
 or rather within and coincident with the evolution of human- 
 ity, is more eternal and more universal. 
 
 We have not yet had a treatise on the Tragic Spirit that 
 has not paid greater attention to the comparative estimate 
 of dramatists in the university or academic manner, than 
 to the psychological reasons for the existence of the spirit 
 itself. Gummere considers the vocero, or tribal songs of 
 grief; here is a primitive basis, unhindered by any cumber- 
 some body of literature, — a basis upon which to reach 
 some physical recognition of tragedy. Perhaps, in a small 
 and not wholly satisfactory manner, W. L. Courtney has 
 suggested quite as much of the historical perspective in a 
 survey of "The Idea of Tragedy" as one would need, in 
 order to arrive at some conception of the tragic, not as a 
 form but as a principle. 
 
 Now, what has happened in this wild and seemingly in- 
 effectual groping for the defining marks of tragedy? Aris- 
 totle, in true greatness of the Greek spirit, attempting to 
 reduce the problem to its simplest points, yet including all 
 its essential connections with life, as the Greek philosophers 
 saw life, used general rather than specific terms : " Tragedy 
 is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of 
 a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each 
 kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in 
 separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of 
 narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper kathar- 
 sis, or purgation, of these emotions." 
 
 The danger of literary study is that, too often, we are 
 side-tracked by minor interesting problems. Not only are 
 there students working in the oppressive style so well ex- 
 emplified in Dr. Schelling's "Elizabethan Drama," where 
 
258 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 streams of fact measure a certain orderliness of mind, with- 
 out expressing the breadth of spiritual view — forgetful of 
 the life and of the personality in the fractional difference 
 of the fact — but a literature has grown up around the 
 interpretation of a word. In Butcher's translation of Aris- 
 totle, he analyzes the Greek conception of "the function 
 of tragedy," and deals with those critics, including Lessing 
 and Goethe, who have debated and challenged the transla- 
 tion of the word katharsis, or purgation. You see how subtly 
 one may be drawn into a profound discussion of the ethics 
 of an art, losing sight of the essentials under consideration. 
 
 The subject is a big one and a human one; on one hand, 
 you have the conventions of the stage in different ages, 
 affecting the form of tragedy; on the other, there are the 
 moral and social standards which have moved the individual 
 along the scale of increasing importance. We have had 
 considered for us Greek tragedy, Roman tragedy, and, in 
 modern times, tragedy reacted upon by English, French, 
 German, Spanish, and Italian temperament. But the basic 
 reasons for the support and development of the Tragic 
 Spirit, whatever the environment, have not had a popular, 
 a readable exposition. That Americans, for example, do 
 not care for tragedy as a form of drama, and blind them- 
 selves to the Tragic Spirit, is not due to a predominating 
 cry in the illogical vein of the Dr. Fell couplet. Nor may 
 we go so deep as ethnology for an explanation. But a 
 perspective view of our human response to social and 
 economic fact will give us cause to believe that comedy, in 
 its richest sense, measures our dramatic taste. 
 
 In Greek tragedy, we consider the abstract will struggling 
 against a religious attitude toward Fate. In Shakespeare, 
 there is the human will centered upon personality, struggling, 
 not against Fate, but against time and circumstance. In 
 Ibsen and Maeterlinck, the stage contracts, becomes cen- 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 259 
 
 tred in personality effected by all the currents of time. 
 I have elsewhere said that Ibsen unfailingly approached 
 optimism, save in the case of "Hedda Gabler" and "The 
 Wild Duck," through pessimistic channels; that his in- 
 dignation was health-giving, and counteracted the bitter 
 realism of his temporal contemplation. Maeterlinck, in 
 the tracks of Emerson, has taken all the abstract ideas of 
 the Greeks — the concepts of destiny, righteousness, truth — 
 moving in an outside sphere, and has compressed them vv ithin 
 and around the individual. 
 
 Tragedy of old had a conventional idea that only the 
 highly bred, the kings, the princes of the universe, were 
 subject to the cataclysmic reversals of Nature. But the 
 modern note accentuates a democratic level, and, as we have 
 "The Treasure of the Humble," so we, perforce, come to 
 consider " the tragical in daily life." 
 
 "I have grown to believe," writes Maeterlinck, "that an 
 old man, seated in his arm-chair, waiting patiently, with 
 his lamp beside him; giving unconscious ear to all the eternal 
 laws that reign about his house; interpreting, without com- 
 prehending, the silence of doors and windows, and the quiver- 
 ing voice of the light; submitting with bent head to the 
 presence of his soul and his destiny, . . . motionless as 
 he is, does yet live in reality a deeper, more human, and more 
 universal life than the lover who strangles his mistress, the 
 captain who conquers in battle, or ' the husband who avenges 
 his honor.' " 
 
 Here, then, the modem concept of tragedy, even in its 
 formal state, takes on a new aspect; the heightened swing 
 of blank verse has had to contend with the commonplace 
 vitality of Ibsen prose. But the essence of the form, which 
 is the Tragic Spirit, has become almost personal in its 
 source. 
 
 In most cases, literary history has shown that dramaturgic 
 
2G0 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 conventions may generally be defied. The comic idea has 
 spread in such directions as to approach the tragic. Someone 
 refused lately to write a book on comedy because the subject 
 was so inclusive in its reach, under modern theatrical nomen- 
 clature. No longer does a tragedy necessarily imply death; 
 no longer does death have to occur off the stage. Technique 
 and philosophy have thrown into temporary disuse the solilo- 
 quy, which largely expressed narratively what Ibsen could 
 place into seemingly trite dialogue, what Maeterlinck, in 
 such a perfect piece of psychology and clinical observation 
 as " The Blind, " treats through the atmospheric quaHty of 
 his OUendorfian talk — which is only OUendorfian, by 
 the way, when it is badly read. 
 
 Maeterlinck has given us "The Life of the Bee''; neither 
 has science refuted his observation nor economics his social 
 statement; yet primarily his essay is no text-book on api- 
 culture, no discussion of the social unit. My contention 
 is that scholarship only half sees, or, more aptly, sees only 
 half of the subject it considers. Tragedy needs yet to be 
 viewed in the Maeterlinckian fulness. 
 
 This does not mean that one should try to sense instinc- 
 tively the Tragic Spirit, though the true artist assuredly be- 
 comes freer as he divines his substance and its essential 
 form, rather than bases it upon studied or remembered 
 models. One writes tragedy only when the Tragic Spirit 
 moves him forcefully, only when it emanates from the 
 material which is his choice. I quote Maeterlinck: "None 
 but yourself shall you meet on the highway of Fate. If 
 Judas go forth to-night, it is toward Judas his steps will 
 tend." 
 
 Life is so closely knit with the tragic and the comic, that 
 defining will not account for all the forms that arise there- 
 from. Abstractly stated, we see the Tragic Spirit as one 
 unchangeable principle — wherein agony, despair, grief, 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 261 
 
 pain, tend toward the dissolution of the human will. Comedy 
 may yield to the darker balance of life, becoming serious, 
 grave, even destructive, yet still we would keep from desig- 
 nating it as tragedy. 
 
 Therefore, even though "A Doll's House" and "Ghosts" 
 be painful in their outcome, though "Hannele" wrench 
 the heart with its pathetic child symbol, though Pinero's 
 "Iris" be the tragic dragging of a woman into the gutter, 
 we theatre-goers are at a want for the phrase by which to 
 call them. Ibsen wrote no tragedies during his later life, 
 in the accepted sense of the word; yet in no modern play- 
 wright is the Tragic Spirit so clearly realizable — which in 
 no way detracts from his positive influence. 
 
 Somehow, form has crept into the popular conception of 
 the outward expression by which the Tragic Spirit is recog- 
 nized. Is it necessary to have the lofty style, the exaggerated 
 speech, the melancholy event, the florid diction, the stately 
 action? Then truly the cottage and cabin are no scenes 
 for tragedy, and the commonplace contains no essence of 
 the same. It is the great flow of circumstance, of time, of 
 infinitude around the lowly, that must be reconciled with 
 the accustomed height and swing of the art form. 
 
 Verily, the student's perspective is needed by the writer 
 on tragedy, but it is his imagination and his constructive 
 ability that will aid him most. For the Tragic Spirit in man 
 is that which gives life to tragedy, and the product may 
 only be a faint reflex of the principle. That is where Greek 
 art overreached the limits of its time; it was conceived 
 clearly in the spirit of highest Greek endeavor; it was based 
 upon the concepts of eternal principles. Thinking was not 
 imitative; it was pristine. Men spoke like oracles, stating 
 law as above fact. 
 
 Tragedy, as a form of art, is at the present, furthest 
 removed from the American spirit — from the democratic 
 
262 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 spirit. I, nevertheless, take the attitude that we must 
 not bUnd ourselves to the existence of the Tragic Spirit, even 
 though we do not accept tragedy, per se, on our boards. 
 Ibsen's voice proclaims its presence underlying the ills of 
 our social organism; Maeterlinck's philosophy shows the 
 lowliest soul confronted by the problems of eternity. We 
 respond in terms of the comic, but the American people 
 cannot be blind to the tragic in their lives. 
 
 We meet misfortune in the comedy spirit of youth. 
 Take the ravages of the Civil War and the epic response 
 afterward among Southerners, who faced the future with 
 supernal faith. Take the San Francisco earthquake and 
 the reaction that resulted in the rebuilding of a city. No 
 one will deny the presence there of the tragic element. 
 Perhaps we are prone to lose sight of it in the reaction of 
 the American spirit itself, after the tragic event. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the old dramatic terms, though rigidly 
 defined by lexicographers, are becoming too narrow to hold 
 the varying forms. And no doubt, with the principle of 
 Ibsen on one hand, and with that of Maeterlinck on the 
 other, we are tending toward a new form. This will be con- 
 sidered later. But, at present, we need some treatise on 
 tragedy which will estimate its essential spirit as well as 
 its varying expression. We speak frankly in our magazines 
 and on our stage, of conditions involving sexual relations and 
 struggles in environment. Yet, though we see souls dragged 
 to the depths of despair in Walter's "The Easiest Way," 
 though Jones's "Mrs. Dane's Defense" gives us another 
 form of social evil, and Nirdlinger, in " The World and His 
 Wife," represents the grave consequences of social gossip, 
 still we find staring us in the face on our program the word 
 "comedy." And our attitude becomes that of comedy 
 toward the vital problems of life, simply because we will not 
 countenance on our stage, or in our ordinary pursuits, the 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 263 
 
 form of tragedy, and we have failed to identify in our 
 national life the presence of a Tragic Spirit. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Comic Spirit is an illusive factor in literary history; 
 it is a deep and subtle principle in life. Raised from its 
 Bacchic origin, it has become the very core of sanity, it has 
 become the true moral corrective of tragedy. Perhaps 
 we are losing sight of this in our demand that a name cover 
 many species, until at last the pure type is confounded 
 with the hybrid. But, nevertheless, for richness of humanity, 
 for breadth of view, for deep understanding, the Comic 
 Spirit has a range that embraces a large sweep of life. 
 
 To him who views the world aright, there are always the 
 action and reaction, the tension and relief. In tragedy, the 
 emotions are so powerfully involved that one is no longer 
 able to measure the deviation from the normal view; but 
 a real value of the Comic Spirit depends almost wholly upon 
 our realization of how far we have deflected from the truth. 
 We can only reach the latter state when we have adequately 
 become informed of the former. We arrive at the pure 
 comic when we have sounded the depths of full existence. 
 
 Now, this view of comedy has been lost to the present- 
 day playgoer; most of our writers either avoid the subject 
 as being too abstract for journalistic purposes, or else dis- 
 cuss new forms herded together under an old name. If 
 we look into the philosophy of the matter, we find the psy- 
 chologist too intent upon the physiological reasons as to 
 why we laugh, and the metaphysician too loath to handle 
 the subject in the concrete. Yet, in the scattered cases 
 where writing has been done on the Comic Spirit, the human- 
 istic aspect has been surely persisting, and its right to be 
 
264 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 regarded as the sane view seems justified in the Hght of 
 accompHshment. 
 
 Within past years, we have had evidences of an existing 
 sense of the Comic Spirit among our dramatists and players. 
 Mr. Barrie would approach very near to it, if his piquancy 
 of outlook was not limited by an agreeable mannerism of 
 narrative style. After a fashion, he defined the true comedy 
 position when, in "What Every Woman Knows," Maggie 
 Wylie declared that no one could love her who could n't 
 laugh at her a little. 
 
 When Percy Mackaye wrote "Mater," his intention was 
 to imbue American conditions with the essence of comedy, 
 illustrating by way of political satire the fundamental note 
 in life, that " the test of love — and the best of love — is 
 laughter." But at present his spiritual desire is more defined 
 than his understanding of the body politic, and Mr. Mac- 
 kaye' s Comic Spirit, as expressed, comes in flashes rather 
 than in even flow. 
 
 Paul Kester, essaying to make a drama from " Don Quix- 
 ote," conceived his knight-errant in terms of situation, 
 rather than in terms of the rich defects of the character. 
 In this latter respect, Mr. Sothern was the only one who 
 approached Cervantes' original conception — to picture 
 the weakness of over-romantic chivalry, at the same time 
 fully realizing perfectly the innate perfectness of the true 
 gentleman. His acting raised Mr. Kester's play, by enforc- 
 ing the personal dignity of the character. 
 
 Take what comedy you will, in which there flows any of 
 the red blood of life, and, after analysis, you will find that 
 the Comic Spirit is not haphazard, is not shallow, is not easy 
 to grasp. One must be very near to life in order to feel it, 
 and must have asked one's self questions regarding the 
 eternal verities, as well as have answered them. 
 
 I have chosen to confine myself entirely to the Comic 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 265 
 
 Spirit as affecting drama, realizing at the outset that we 
 must not identify it exclusively with the stage, inasmuch 
 as we have Thackeray, Balzac, La Fontaine, Cervantes, 
 Rabelais, and Chaucer richly entitled to consideration in 
 the larger field. But I am taking the stage, for I am aware 
 that, curiously, it is there that the fullest meaning of the 
 Comic Spirit is in greatest danger of being submerged. 
 There are some audiences so regaled by the fun-making of 
 Eddie Foy and James T. Powers — thoroughly clever as far 
 as they go — that these same audiences do not see the sweet 
 human defects that bring one to the verge of tears. Why 
 not, they argue, call " 'Op o' My Thumb" a tragedy and 
 be done with it? 
 
 All is not gold that glitters, saith the proverb; which 
 means, theatrically, that our stage is too filled with song 
 and dance to comprehend the Comic Spirit. Mr. Mansfield 
 never once builded upon our reaching the human and in- 
 terpretative importance of Moliere's " Misanthrope." He 
 planned simply to satisfy his own desire to add to the honor 
 of the stage; he was not disappointed, for Moliere was not 
 a popular success. Yet it is the duty of our critics to point 
 the way to what the Comic Spirit means in the affairs of 
 Hfe. Our stage revivals are received with too much willing- 
 ness to understand the archaeological shroud, and with no 
 cultural perspective to note wherein the unctuousness and 
 live quality lay. It is part of the university's province to 
 quicken the past. And so, I welcome Dr. Curtis Hidden 
 Page's translations of Moliere, not only because they are 
 an aid to the English reader, but because in tlie lucidity 
 of their style they are adequate for stage presentation, 
 with practical and judicious excisions. I believe it is given 
 the audience to sense the essence of the comic without 
 knowing why or how. This is seen in that instantaneous 
 response of the reading public, for example, to Aldrich, to 
 
266 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Mark Twain, to Holmes; and in the merry laugh over 
 "Uncle Remus." I see the Comic Spirit swell the meaty 
 substance of Henry James' sentences. It is not that the 
 Comic Spirit is wanting, but that our vision of it has been 
 warped by other forms which are, in comparison, even as 
 paste jewels. It is surprising that we have so much of the 
 richness of the comic in the face of newspaper supplements 
 and musical comedies. We will have greater plays of the 
 Comic Spirit just so soon as we are everywhere alive to its 
 whole value. It were well for us, indeed, when we reach 
 that stage of culture where we can grasp the humor of our 
 faith without in the least relinquishing its sanctity. In 
 deep reverence, I have heard portions of the Book of Mark 
 read for the purpose of illustrating the rich essence of Christ's 
 humor. Comedy and right living are closely related 
 ideas. 
 
 At the beginning of a chapter on "Greek and Roman 
 Comedy," in Professor Matthews' "The Development of 
 the Drama," the author attempts to indicate a terse dis- 
 tinction between tragedy, serious drama, and comedy, 
 basing the whole upon Brunetiere's law — which after all 
 is only Brunetiere's restatement of the law of drama from 
 time immemorial, — that all drama deals with the exercise 
 of the human will. "If," so writes Professor Matthews, 
 "the obstacle against which the will of the hero finally 
 breaks itself is absolutely insurmountable, the Greek idea 
 of Fate, for example, the Christian decree of Providence, 
 or the modern scientific doctrine of heredity, then we have 
 tragedy, pure and simple. If the obstacle is not absolutely 
 insurmountable, being no more than the social law, some- 
 thing of man's own making, and therefore not finally inex- 
 orable, then we have the serious drama. If the obstacle 
 is only the desire of another human being, then the result 
 of the contention of these two characters is likely to give 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 267 
 
 us a comedy. And if the obstacle is merely one of the minor 
 conventions of society, then we may have farce." 
 
 These are merely perfunctory demarcations, with only 
 one phase of the matter indicated; for in no way do the 
 several definitions clearly denote the measurement of the 
 comic or tragic clash with the norm. The ethical, moral 
 value of laughter lies in the fact that it makes us more sane, 
 by bringing more truly into relief, through some slight in- 
 congruity of motive or situation, the benefits of the normal 
 life. Throughout his discussion of Aristotle, Butcher is 
 continually emphasizing the humanistic, philosophical view 
 of comedy, which distinguishes the modern from the ancient. 
 He lays stress upon Hobbes' claim that "the passion of 
 laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory, arising from a 
 sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by com- 
 parison of the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." 
 The high comic poet must taste of life healthily, and see 
 that it is good, before he formulates a table of contrasts. 
 Knowing fife, as it is given the big man to know it, he allows 
 himself to throw relations out of harmony to the point 
 where he is in danger of losing all hold upon the sane view. 
 
 The Comic Spirit, therefore, represents one of the highest 
 factors, if not the highest, in life. From the modern stand- 
 point, it approaches closer to the ethical demand, since it 
 represents optimism rather than pessimism. "Comic 
 emotion," Dr. Guthrie claims, "originates from the co- 
 existence of a perception of incongruity and a persistent 
 conviction, not probably more than half conscious and in 
 all likelihood quite inexplicit, that in despite of such incon- 
 gruity things are right." 
 
 The Greeks did not conceive the Comic Spirit in as pure 
 a state as they did the Tragic Spirit; they could not wholly 
 separate it from the Bacchic on one hand, or from the satiric 
 on the other. "The ludicrous," as defined by Aristotle, 
 
268 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 "consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or 
 destructive." The Greeks denied tears to laughter: they 
 well-nigh sacrificed sympathy. There was some malice in 
 their enjoyment of "discomfiture," as Butcher so well ana- 
 lyzes. They did not look to the comic for a criticism of 
 life in general; they narrowed to the individual, sacrificing 
 the type; they satirized with no regard for sane restraint. 
 To them the Comic Spirit dwelt within the lower 
 types. 
 
 As usual, we next turn attention to comedy in Shake- 
 speare, as illustrating the rich humanistic view of character, 
 devoid of buffoonery; one finds the full value in the char- 
 acter of Viola and in that of Malvolio. Life is warm, replete 
 in sunshine here, with no poisoned shafts, but ripe in sym- 
 pathy with human foibles, in kindliness. "Twelfth Night" 
 is Shakespeare's midsummer in comedy, declares Professor 
 Dowden. 
 
 In a broad sense, Moliere is more nearly representative 
 of the Comic Spirit than Shakespeare, although in a few 
 instances the latter attained the pinnacle of preeminence. 
 The former, however, clearly illustrates that perfection with 
 which the comedy of manners, exquisitely representing its 
 age on one hand, may likewise embrace a universal con- 
 sideration. Scribe is Moliere perverted. 
 
 "I can never care for seeing Things that force me to 
 entertain low Thoughts of my Nature," wrote Congreve, 
 in a letter concerning "Humor in Comedy." Take this 
 statement in consideration with the moral status of his 
 theatre, and we begin to realize that it was only through 
 his grasp of the Comic Spirit that Congreve was preserved 
 out of the general licentiousness of the time. He had the 
 faults of his social environment; his genius rose above them, 
 however identified with them, however shaped by them. 
 Congreve means brilliancy of dialogue, and a sense of comic 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 269 
 
 values, as soon as you are able to realize that he represents 
 also a certain phase of English dramatic evolution. Do 
 you remember Lamb's essay "On the Artificial Comedy of 
 the Last Century"? 
 
 This is no simple subject that we are looking at so cursorily. 
 Its proper consideration involves racial and national limita- 
 tions and differences. What you smile over, I may not. 
 What the English critic defines as Comedy, the German 
 critic may deny; the one believes in a permanent effect of 
 comedy, the other in simply a transitory effect. To enforce 
 this, Dr. Paul Hamelius quotes Kant's ''Kritik of Judgment," 
 which defines "laughter as an emotion occasioned by the 
 sudden resolution of a roused expectation into nothing." 
 
 Therefore, generally speaking, the German conception of 
 comedy, as represented in Schlegel, is wild and lawless; and 
 in true German manner, the philosophers, in especial Hegel, 
 interpret the effect this "ignorance of self-restraint" has 
 upon individuality and its vital relations to life, to cause 
 and effect. 
 
 The book has yet to be written which will define the 
 Comic Spirit in terms here suggested; the subject is so 
 broad as to make the university worker hesitate. We want 
 a vital discussion, in which tendencies, racial and social, are 
 indicated; it is not enough that individual plays be defined 
 in the scholar's manner. For the average reader is not 
 familiar with plays of much wide diversity of range. That 
 is why George Meredith is perhaps so little known to the 
 general public as an analyzer of "comedy" in a special 
 essay; it is full of learning, of great familiarity with stage 
 history from the closet standpoint. He views his subject 
 with the eye of the novelist. Yet his humanistic approach 
 toward his discursive point of view is replete with unerring 
 appreciation of the true value. "To be an exalted variety," 
 he writes, "is to come under the calm, curious eye of the 
 
270 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Comic Spirit, and be probed for what you are." Again he 
 proclaims that "Comedy is the fountain of sound sense," 
 all expressions of which are deeply conceived, and which, 
 in themselves, refine even to pain. 
 
 In analyzing the essence of American humor, Charles 
 Johnston ^ makes an excellent distinction between humor 
 and wit, in both of which there must be the element of 
 laughter. He writes: 
 
 " If there is a play of mind about difference of race, using 
 this as the laughter-rousing contrast which is common to 
 both wit and humor, and if this play of thought and feeling 
 accentuates and heightens the race difference, and tries to 
 show, or assume, as is often the case, that the race of the 
 joker is endlessly superior to the other, then we are dealing 
 with wit, an amusing thing enough in its way, but a false 
 thing, one which leads us away from the true end of man. 
 If, on the other hand, we have an accentuation of the common 
 life, bridging the chasm of race, and the overplus of power 
 is felt to be shared in by the two races, and to unite them, 
 then we have genuine humor, something as vital to our true 
 humanity as is the Tragedy of Greece, as is the Evangel of 
 Galilee, yet something more joyful and buoyant than either; 
 uniting us, not through comparison or the sense of common 
 danger, but through the sense of common power, a prophecy 
 of the golden age, of the ultimate triumph of the soul." 
 
 Consider these differences carefully, and it will be seen 
 how reversed are the essential spirits of comedy and farce. 
 These are not alone two forms of drama; they are also two 
 outlooks upon life. The great fault with the American 
 dramatist is that often he hides the richness of his humor 
 » Atlantic, 87: 195-202, 1901. 
 
Edward Harrigax 
 
 Photo, by Schloss 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 271 
 
 beneath the incongruity of witty situation ; he spoils the 
 good-natured satire of his intention beneath cartoon motives 
 and actions. This was the weakness of Charles Hoyt (1860- 
 1900),! author of "A Parlor Match," "A Rag Baby," "Old 
 Sport," "A Trip to Chinatown," "A Texas Steer," "A 
 Temperance Town," "A Contented Woman" (1895), and 
 "A Milk White Flag." His satire was spontaneous, but 
 be became self-conscious whenever he attempted to cross 
 the border into farce. His political pictures, his characteri- 
 zations of conscientious churchmen, his thrusts against the 
 sporting craze, the temperance movement, the militia, and 
 the woman's rights movement would undoubtedly have 
 placed him among the foremost American dramatists had 
 he not persisted in upsetting his good work, which lay so 
 largely in his ability to contrast, and in his resorting to 
 the ridiculous and the incongruous. Hence, in Hoyt's plays 
 there was an admixture of insight and shallowness. 
 
 I should say, therefore, that his farce-comedies were 
 marked by humor, but were spoiled by the form of farce. 
 As for Edward Harrigan (1845-1911), he must be character- 
 ized as a delineator of a special type, and with his partner, 
 Tony Hart, he built up the reputation which won him 
 support. For the two were funmakers, as Weber and Fields 
 and the Rogers Brothers were funmakers. In 1871, Harrigan 
 and Hart began their careers in "The Mulcaney Twins"; 
 then there followed in quick succession " The Day We Went 
 West," "The Doyle Brothers," "The Major" (1877), "Old 
 Lavender" (1877), "The Mulligan Guards' Ball" (1879), 
 "The MulHgan Guards' Chowder" (1879), "The Mulligan 
 Guards' Christmas," "The Mulligan Guards' Surprise," 
 and others. 
 
 Like the elder Tyrone Power's, Harrigan's pieces depended 
 
 1 See the excellent article by Atherton Brownell in Bostonian, 
 3; 386^ Jan., 1898. 
 
272 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 upon his acting.^ There was no art in the writing of them, 
 and they would not read well were they put into print. 
 Nor can we say that they were typical of American humor. 
 In the street sense, George M. Cohan represents the popular 
 conception of American wit, and his ability should not be 
 overiooked. But he does not in any way approach the true 
 humor of George Ade, whose style, even before he became 
 a playwright, was sufficiently conversational in his books 
 to point the way to the stage. That road, however, came 
 into being by the merest chance in 1902. 
 
 Ade was born in Kentland, Indiana, on February 9, 1866, 
 his father being a prominent banker of the town. In his 
 youth, the boy tasted of all that country life upon which 
 he was to look back with gentle banter and kindly laughter. 
 In 1887, he graduated from Purdue University, and there- 
 upon began his profession of journalism, which was to lead 
 him to authorship. 
 
 By 1890, he was on the Chicago Daily News, associating 
 with Harry B. Smith, the librettist of "Robin Hood" and 
 "Rob Roy"; Peter F. Dunne, alias "Mr. Dooley"; and 
 Charles B. Dillingham, who, once the personal represen- 
 tative of Miss Julia Marlowe, is now one of the prominent 
 managers of the time. Ade's strides were determined and 
 rapid. In 1894, he became a member of the staff of the 
 
 * He was also the author of "Darby and Lanty" (1876) ; " Is- 
 caine" (1876); "St. Patrick's Day Parade" (1876); "Ireland 
 persMs Italy" (1876); "Lorgaire" (1878); "The Major" (1881); 
 "Squatter Sovereignty" (1882); " The Blackbird " (1882); "Mor- 
 decai Lyons" (1882); "McSorley's Inflation" (1882); "The 
 Muddy'sDay" (1883); "Cordelia's Aspirations" (1883); "Dan's 
 Tribulations" (1884); "Investigation" (1884); " The Grip "(1885); 
 "The Leather Patch" (1886); "The O'Reagans" (1886); "Mc- 
 Nooney's Visit " (1887); "Pete" (1887); "Waddy Googan" (1888); 
 "Reilly and the Four Hundred " (1890) ; "The Last of the Hogans " 
 (1891); "The Woollen Stocking" (1893); "Notoriety" (1894), 
 See Mackaye and Wingate's "Actors of To-day in America," 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 273 
 
 Chicago Record, remaining there seven years, and occupying 
 the desk made vacant through the death of Eugene Field. 
 His "Artie" book and his "Fables in Slang'* were written 
 during these years. In 1900, he sailed for China, Japan, and 
 the Philippines. Thus far the reporter was seeing life in 
 various hues. 
 
 Then, on his return, a young Chicago composer, Mr. 
 Wathall, asked Ade to write the "book" for a musical score 
 he was preparing for an amateur club. But the actual work 
 had not progressed far when Henry W. Savage appeared 
 upon the scene, and Ade entered as a factor in the American 
 drama, with "The Sultan of Sulu." Then followed in quick 
 succession, "Peggy from Paris," "The County Chairman," 
 "The Sho-Gun," "The College Widow," "The Bad Samari- 
 tan," and "Just Out of College." "Father and the Boys" 
 is his most recent successful piece. 
 
 All of these plays apply poignantly to American con- 
 ditions; they make use of a fresh way of forcing the in- 
 congruous elements of "news" to act themselves visibly 
 before an audience. They are loaded down with a humor 
 which is that of the man on the street — perfectly legiti- 
 mate humor, even though viewing life from a lower level 
 of values. 
 
 Take, for instance, the predominant object of "The 
 Sho-Gun," which is a Korean opera. " It is meant," explains 
 Mr. Ade himself, " to be an indirect treatise on the worship 
 of titles, the formation of trusts, the potency of the American 
 *pull,* Yankee commercial invasion, legal manoeuvring, 
 advertising enterprise, and other subjects of timely interest." 
 
 The saving grace in our strenuous existence is our ap- 
 preciation of our vagaries; that is why Mr. Ade's comic 
 operas are as stimulating as good cartoons. Besides sup- 
 plying the sinuous lines of color, they have ideas behind 
 the detail. In this respect, Mr. Ade is not so very far re- 
 
274 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 moved from W. S. Gilbert, though lacking in facility and 
 in grace. He has defined American drama as one in which 
 American characters are dealt with "in such manner as to 
 increase our self-respect and to give us a new insight into 
 our characteristics as a people." 
 
 Mr. Ade's humor has all the essence of good comedy, but 
 its form is unsteady and is too imitative of the conventional 
 musical comedy and of farce. I do not believe I am far 
 wrong in the contention that our stage has yet to under- 
 stand the true meaning of comedy, and especially so when 
 it starts out to create comedy in a spirit which is really 
 farce. 
 
 However incomplete our discussion, we have at least 
 come to comprehend the justice of accusing our stage of mis- 
 interpreting the true, permanent function of comedy. We 
 need a new nomenclature in order to divest the pure type of 
 its confusing deviations. Because we have lost the rich 
 meaning of comedy, we find it difficult, save in " An Enemy 
 of the People," to understand the Comic Spirit in Ibsen, and 
 it is only by this realization that we will grasp the full sig- 
 nificance of Ibsen^s optimism. Humor is innate; it is depend- 
 ent as much upon a quick fancy as upon a quick response 
 to the actual. Though it is not self-conscious, our efforts 
 toward culture ignore the strength that comes from a 
 general understanding of the Comic Spirit. Our American 
 dramatists mostly reflect their humor as an external thing, 
 though there is a difference of excellence between Mark 
 Twain and George Ade; between George Ade and George 
 M. Cohan. Raise the taste for the true Comic Spirit, which 
 saturates humanity first, and creates situation secondarily, 
 and the American dramatist will become more vital in his 
 whole effect. The Comic Spirit exists in our literature, but 
 not so in our drama; because, in bulk, our plays do not stand 
 the test of literature. 
 
George Ade 
 
FORMS OF AMERICAN DRAMA 275 
 
 And yet, the theatre-goer who thinks at all on these ques- 
 tions as to the essence of drama will feel that something big 
 should eventually come from American humor on the one 
 hand, and from our national sanity on the other. Certainly, 
 when the accomplishment reaches us, it will be fraught in 
 large measure with the Comic Spirit.^ 
 
 * In a consideration of Comedy, the general reader is referred 
 to: 
 
 "An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit." George 
 Meredith. Scribner, 1905. 
 
 "Representative English Comedies." Edited by C. M. Gayley. 
 Macmillan, 1903. 
 
 "Moli^re." Translated by Curtis Hidden Page. (2 vols.) Put- 
 nam, 1908. Besides the excellence of the English versions, the 
 books contain worthy introductory notes and a full bibliography. 
 We would have been glad to see somewhere in these otherwise 
 satisfactory volumes a fuller analysis of the Comic Spirit in Moli^re. 
 
 "Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art." S. M. Butcher. 
 Macmillan, 1907. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 
 
 Heretofore, everything that has been written about the 
 need for a New or a National Theatre in America has been 
 of a speculative character. Even the excellent statistical 
 book by William Archer and Granville Barker, — " Scheme 
 and Estimates for a National Theatre," — dealing with the 
 conditions for endowment as they exist in London, is of 
 a purely chimerical, though serviceable and suggestive, 
 nature. 
 
 But now, we have actually had a theatre in the flesh, so 
 to speak, one worked on principles far different from the 
 commercial theatre, one raised during its initial period far 
 beyond the need of financial worry, one given a substantial 
 building. And what is the result? During a trial of two 
 years, the physical proportions of the theatre itself were 
 found to be too large, and the deficit in the treasury stood 
 four hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 The question is no longer, will a New Theatre succeed — 
 but, has the idea any chance whatsoever under present 
 theatrical conditions? For it must not be denied that the 
 elements of success for any movement pointing to the 
 betterment of a national art and of a National or New 
 Theatre cannot be kept aloof from theatrical conditions as 
 they exist. 
 
 No art given over to a dilettante movement, no art sep- 
 arated from the civic life of a people and set up in the minds 
 
A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 277 
 
 of a few individuals intent on improving the drama accord- 
 ing to their personal tastes or according to a tradition 
 foreign to the country in which the theatre is to exist, may 
 ever hope for an appeal wide enough to affect national taste. 
 
 Let us look carefully into the subject, and try to reach 
 some conclusions as to the influence of the New Theatre as 
 it actually existed, from November, 1909, to May, 191L If, 
 as the promoters of the scheme claimed, it was not the 
 object of the Directors to antagonize the commercial theatre; 
 if, as was emphatically declared at the outset, they did not 
 intend to appeal to the few, but to reach the masses; if, as 
 they further asserted, they were to have nothing to do with 
 snobbishness, even though their endowment or their sub- 
 sidy or their income — call it by whatever name you please 
 — came from wealthy sources, then what was their intent? 
 Were they to force the public to take what was caviare, or 
 were they to appeal to the public taste, as it is now trained 
 by the commercial manager? 
 
 It would seem that, apart from the mere organization of 
 the theatre idea, per se, which included much of the detail 
 so graphically set down by Archer and Barker, the chief 
 concern of any new artistic movement toward the better- 
 ment of theatrical condition would be in organizing a public 
 sufficiently strong to assure the independent existence of a 
 National or a New Theatre, which, having been founded 
 upon endowment or subsidy, soon would become self- 
 supporting through the suffrage of the people. There is 
 no doubt that toward the end of two years, Winthrop 
 Ames, as first Director of the New Theatre, not only demon- 
 strated that there was an audience for artistic productions, 
 but he met difficulties with a dignity commensurate with 
 the dignity of the enterprise. He was handicapped, at the 
 outset, with three negative conditions. First, the Board of 
 Directors was not as generous in its support as it should 
 
278 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 have been; second, the subscribers were not as cordial as 
 they promised to be to the repertory idea; and finally, good 
 plays, other than those cornered by the commercial manager, 
 were not plentiful. 
 
 The New Theatre^ was erected by a group of wealthy 
 men — hence its popular stigma, " The Millionaire Play- 
 house '* — who at first invested their money in the scheme 
 with no idea of receiving or of claiming any returns on their 
 investments, other than the privileges granted them within 
 the theatre during its active season. Whatever profits 
 accrued — and it was not expected that there would be 
 any profits for at least three years — were to be handed over 
 to the theatre as new capital. With this financial backing, 
 the institution could be considered neither endowed nor 
 subsidized. 
 
 Nor could we call the theatre as outlined for New York a 
 National Theatre, inasmuch as American theatrical art 
 is too closely allied with British art to ignore the British 
 dramatist. Therefore, the name "New Theatre," while 
 non-committal, was satisfactory, although "Repertory 
 Theatre" might have been better. But the name would 
 not have mattered, had the idea and spirit behind the 
 organization been sustained by the Board of Directors. 
 
 Some years ago, in discussing the mission of the modern 
 magazine. Dr. Lyman Abbott asserted that it was doing as 
 much as any other factor toward deprovincializing America. 
 But he failed to mention among the great institutional 
 forces of modern life the increasingly important position 
 occupied by the theatre, a position consequent upon an 
 increase in theatrical territory, and upon an undermining of 
 the long existent puritanical prejudice against the theatre as 
 a source of iniquity. 
 
 1 On Central Park West and Sixty-second Street; New York 
 City. 
 
A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 279 
 
 There are over three thousand recognized houses of amuse- 
 ment in this country — a large proportion of them in small 
 towns along the railroad lines connecting the chief theatrical 
 centres. To cut one off, as Mrs. Fiske and David Belasco 
 were cut, from these intermediate playhouses between 
 large cities, was business and artistic annihilation. This 
 was the method adopted by the Theatrical Syndicate, 
 whenever a rival was in the way. 
 
 The ethical responsibility of catering to the amusement 
 interests of a public seems incompatible with the customary 
 theatrical idea. In the eyes of business, art is experimental, 
 financial returns on investment an actuality. The commercial 
 tone in drama has resulted in three dangers characteristic 
 of Trust ideas. First, until recently, it has very largely 
 discouraged home production by bringing to America foreign 
 plays already proven and already advertised. Second, it 
 has, by pleasing the eye, given a minimum of thought to feed 
 upon. Third, from the standpoint of organization, it has, 
 by the variety and largeness of its interests, lost much of the 
 essence and concentration that should mark an intelligent 
 handling of the situation. 
 
 On the score of mere mechanical technique, on the score 
 of the booking system, nothing may be said against theatrical 
 organization. It is, however, from an abuse of the method 
 and a narrowness of the motive, that the idea of a National 
 Theatre, of a New Theatre, or of any theatre pledged to the 
 high seriousness of dramatic art, first came into being. 
 
 It is a wrong theory that one may divorce business from 
 dramatic art; only by material returns is one able to measure 
 popular appeal and popular response. There might, at 
 first glance, seem to be insuperable barriers in the way of 
 the establishment of a National or even of a New Theatre, 
 but apart from the human reasons, this conception is due to a 
 wrong idea as to the exact province of an endov/ed or • sub- 
 
280 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 sidized institution, among a number of theatres run strictly 
 on a commercial basis. 
 
 As Percy Mackaye has reiterated, both in speech and in 
 writing, the obliteration of the commercial manager from 
 the theatrical horizon would in no way alter theatrical con- 
 ditions as they exist, although the largest obstacle to reform 
 might be removed. The unthinking theatre man is one with 
 surplus business instinct, and with little innate feeling for 
 the product he handles.^ He lacks spiritual refinement; he 
 underestimates, if he estimates at all, the spiritual and 
 mental demands of his public. Once he has found "a good 
 thing," he is not psychologist enough to understand that a 
 surfeit of a particular good thing dulls popular response. 
 
 From this surfeit has grown the unfortunate condition of 
 long runs, where the actor, whatever the extent of his 
 ability, is allowed to work in ruts, where there is no chang- 
 ing of demands made upon his diversified talents, if he has any 
 talent at all. The work of the American actor has done 
 much for the American manager; it has made the best of a 
 bad bargain; and in a season one is surprised to find isolated 
 bits of acting which, nurtured on a repertoire basis, might 
 develop into distinctive art. 
 
 There is a tendency to establish in this country a stock 
 system, somewhat different from the old-time stock days, 
 yet with the fundamental idea of giving to the actor the 
 asset of a repertoire.^ But in the stock company, which 
 
 1 See Robert Grau's "The Business Man in the Amusement 
 World," 1910. 
 
 2 The ideal stock plays are "Shore Acres," "Sag Harbor," 
 "Way Down East," "Alabama," "Arizona," "St. Elmo," "Secret 
 Service." Plays that are released for stock often make fortunes 
 for their authors. The final step in the progress of a play is to sell 
 one's rights to the Kinetoscopic Theatre. Playwrights, in the 
 latter instance, think it best to do this; otherwise the play is stolen 
 and mutilated. In one summer stock company, it was found that 
 
A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 281 
 
 flourishes particularly in the Spring and Summer seasons, 
 there is an incHnation to overwork the actor, even though 
 there is a tendency to raise thereby the vaudeville houses 
 to a plane of legitimacy. And what is more, those cities 
 that have these stock companies benefit by the revival of 
 plays that have had their season, and would otherwise be 
 shelved. 
 
 When it was announced that New York was to have a 
 New Theatre, there was much adverse criticism. Part of 
 this came from quarters naturally antagonistic to any as- 
 sured competitor in the field. But despite the unsuccessful 
 outcome of a two years' experiment, the New Theatre was 
 in no way a competitor. While it was not as invigorating as 
 the Theatre Antoine and not as institutional, because not as 
 old, as the Theatre Fran9aise, it gave us an art faith and 
 represented earnest endeavor. 
 
 Suspicion was instantly thrown upon the idea of a New 
 Theatre because of its "aristocratic" origins, because of its 
 conservative methods of changing bills, and because of its 
 affiliation with the Metropolitan Opera House, from which 
 source it was to draw material for light opera of the type of 
 "Madame Butterfly." This connection was found to be 
 unprofitable after the first season, and so, in one respect, the 
 New Theatre became what it started out to be, a home 
 devoted entirely to the interests of drama. 
 
 The movement, under Director Winthrop Ames, began 
 with a prejudice to combat. Others had been ahead of him 
 in the field and had failed ; hence, there was a general dis- 
 trust of any movement which might be carried on in aloof- 
 ness. When there was an endeavor on foot several years ago 
 to establish a National Art Theatre Society, however wild 
 
 a play was being given, entitled "The Tavern Keeper's Daughter," 
 — a mixture of "The Girl of the Golden West" and "Alabama," 
 with a flavor of "Arizona." 
 
282 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 and unpractical the ideas behind it, there was a definite 
 determination to incorporate within itself the intellectual 
 energy of outside institutions. Upon its Board of Directors 
 there were to have been represented a member each from 
 the American Dramatists Club, Columbia University, the 
 Federated Arts Society, the Authors Club, even the Bar 
 Association and the Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 In its initial period, the New Theatre depended too much 
 upon a close policy. And it did not reach out for material; 
 hence it failed to secure much encouragement from any 
 prominent American dramatist. This might have been 
 because of two reasons: first, the American dramatist of note, 
 being astute, may have wanted to see how the venture was 
 to succeed before becoming identified with it; and second, 
 the American dramatist may have wanted to protect his 
 income, based on royalties. For his play, as accepted by 
 the New Theatre, would probably run no more than thirty 
 or forty times during a season, whereas the commercial 
 manager would assure him an uninterrupted run of one 
 hundred and forty or fifty nights. But the playwright and 
 the manager at first lost sight of the fact that the avowed 
 intention of the New Theatre — a faith kept for instance in 
 the case of "The Nigger," which had a road run almost as 
 sensational as that of Thomas A. Dixon's " The Clansman " 
 — was to become a responsible advance agent for pieces 
 whose excellence deserved pecuniary support. 
 
 There was no legitimate basis for mistrust of the New 
 Theatre because its Board of Directors thought best to 
 appoint a member of the established Theatrical Trust as an 
 officer in the institution. This was done purely because 
 that member could bring his force of experience to bear upon 
 a new problem. It is one thing to regard drama as a closet 
 product or as an art form subject to criticism, but if a theatre 
 is to be run at all, it must deal with drama practically, 
 
Photo, by Otto Sa7-o>iy Co. 
 
 Minnie Maddern Fiske 
 
A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 283 
 
 exercising the elements of selection, expenditure, and pub- 
 licity for its dissemination through proper channels. That 
 is why a member of the commercial theatre was made 
 treasurer. 
 
 Much ill-feeling was manifest against the New Theatre 
 because the Director selected so many English actors for his 
 casts, but this was very likely due to the fact that the best 
 American players were tied up with contracts, and also 
 because the English actor is better accustomed to the 
 repertory idea. Miss Marlowe and Mr. Sothern opened 
 the theatre in a sumptuous production of "Antony and 
 Cleopatra," but, apart from whether or not the play suited 
 their talents, their ideas were not in accord with those of the 
 New Theatre. Miss Annie Russell became a member of the 
 company for a period, but in no drama was she happily 
 placed; so she resigned. The Director made a mistake 
 when he mounted "Becky Sharp," for instead of having 
 Mrs. Fiske in Langdon Mitchell's version of " Vanity Fair," 
 he asked Marie Tempest, and chose Cosmo Gordon-Lennox's 
 version. 
 
 It was the general belief some years ago, when the scheme 
 for a National Theatre was agitated in this country, that 
 there would be no reason why, as soon as the sentiment was 
 thoroughly grounded, the plans should not be put into 
 execution, as the practical outcome of a sane idealism, one 
 which, knowing the limits of an art and realizing the differ- 
 ences beween dramaturgy and literature, seeks for a balance 
 between the two. But as soon as a definite building was 
 erected, the order of reasoning was reversed. The question 
 then became: Was the New Theatre established on the sup- 
 position that there was a public, other than a subscription 
 public, to fill its floor and galleries? The university spirit 
 might supply it with an audience of literary tasters, but the 
 average public refuses to be bored. Besides which, the average 
 
284 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 public has limited means for enjoyment, and when they 
 went to the galleries of the New Theatre, they found the 
 strain upon the ear, and particularly upon the eye, more than 
 they could stand. Hence the wage earner stayed away, and 
 it was rarely that the auditorium of the New Theatre was 
 filled.! 
 
 In fact, at the outset, the institution was confronted with 
 the correlated difficulties of having to select a repertory for a 
 public which it had to train. But instead of training that 
 public, the New Theatre dealt too much with novelty. It 
 only realized too late that the first thing it should have 
 done was to have accustomed its actors to a permanent 
 stock of plays, sufficiently varied to satisfy the boxholders 
 while new productions were in preparation. It did not 
 realize that if it departed beyond that all-important aim of 
 repertory, it would lift itself out of the immediate public 
 influence, and serve only as an example of what might be, 
 after another institution had educated public taste to re- 
 ceive it. The Director was wrong in his disregard of demo- 
 cratic interests, though he might with reason have pointed 
 to his production of Galsworthy's "Strife" with some show 
 of pride. 
 
 It is always well to bear in mind the purposes of a National 
 Theatre — a home where dramatic art may be encouraged in 
 an ideal building, where a repertory of dignified and per- 
 manent worth may be fostered, where the American play 
 may be encouraged, where a standard of pronunciation may 
 be adopted, a conservatory established for the education of 
 the actor, and a dramatic library founded for those volumes 
 which are now foolishly being scattered. 
 
 * The New Theatre, however, gave several performances at 
 reduced prices, especially for the wage earners, and the immediate 
 response was gratifying, though the theatre itself lost money in the 
 venture. 
 
A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 285 
 
 With a building of ideal proportions in New York — con- 
 sidered to be the commercial centre of the New World, 
 even though some might doubt its claim to being the art 
 centre — one cannot take from New York the fact that it is 
 the most cosmopolitan city in the Union, and that, for this 
 reason, more people of the different sections would have an 
 opportunity of passing through the doors of a New Theatre 
 there than elsewhere. 
 
 The institution, at the outset, was handicapped by too 
 large a building, the foundations of which were originally 
 based on plans accepted by Heinrich Conried, whose ample 
 ideas were colored by his opera ambitions. This building 
 they were obliged to abandon after a tenure of two years, 
 by their move showing that a New Theatre does not imply 
 a large building, but one happily proportioned for all neces- 
 sities. Had the theatre not been subjected to the hiatus 
 of a year — during which time probably another building 
 will be erected, more in accord with the requirements of the 
 spoken drama — one might have been justified in con- 
 cluding that an artistic and financial success would have 
 resulted in similar theatres being built in the large cities of 
 the country. But inasmuch as the New Theatre has had 
 a set back, cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago 
 are justified in attempting a National Theatre from their 
 own individual viewpoints. 
 
 People approached the first year of the New Theatre with 
 every hope that it would select a repertory sufficiently catho- 
 lic to satisfy the masses, that it would present dramas — 
 apart from Shakespearean revivals — sufficiently strong to 
 show the commercial manager that it pays to select plays 
 of true worth; that, finally, it would, through its successes, 
 afford new incentive to the playwright, and infuse into the 
 general theatrical situation assurance that good dramatic 
 art is only that art which is supported through the suffrage 
 
286 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 of the people. The New Theatre strove earnestly to fulfill 
 these requirements, but opposition, together with its own 
 errors, handicapped it. The period of its tenure was too 
 short, however, to judge finally; but during its two years it 
 had ample opportunity to alter its course on the mistakes of 
 its first season. The Board of Directors — standing to lose, even 
 though the figures mounted to four hundred thousand dollars 
 
 — should have approached their task in this manner : After a 
 year, has the institution, in its repertoire and in its acting, 
 made any artistic impress upon the theatrical situation? After 
 four years — for it takes that long to balance the machinery 
 
 — does dramatic art pay? If it does not, then the Directors 
 would have had a right to question whether the New Theatre 
 had been presenting good dramatic art, by which we mean 
 high art for the greatest numbers. But the Directors did 
 not keep full faith with the idea of a New Theatre. After the 
 first year had proven that the building was too large, while 
 alterations were being made for the second season, work 
 should have been started upon a new playhouse. For it 
 was easily discernible that such solid physical proportions 
 as marked the New Theatre could never be properly altered. 
 Then there would have been no necessity to have a period 
 of waiting, such as the New Theatre will have to go through 
 when the season of 1911-12 begins. The resumption of 
 an idea is difficult to foster. 
 
 Under the management of Director Ames, the New Theatre 
 scheme did not fail.^ It is something for a manager to be 
 able to boast that under his tenure of two years, he pro- 
 
 » See W. P. Eaton's "At the New Theatre and Others; " "Scheme 
 and Estimates for a National Theatre" by William Archer and 
 Granville Barker; and Henry Arthur Jones's "Renascence of the 
 English Drama." I would refer the reader to three books dealing 
 with the English situation : Mario Borso's "The English Stage of 
 To-day;" P. P. Howe's "The Repertory Theatre;" and Desmond 
 McCarthy's "The Court Theatre: 1904-1907." 
 
A NEW OR A NATIONAL THEATRE 287 
 
 duced such an excellent spectacle as Maeterlinck's "The 
 Blue Bird," such an effective social piece as Galsworthy's 
 "Strife," such a distinctive study of characters as Pinero's 
 "The Thunderbolt," and such a poignant morality as 
 Maeterlinck's "Sister Beatrice." He could have done no 
 better than to profit by the sensible and effective tastes 
 of his assistant producers, Hamilton Bell and George 
 Foster Piatt. No commercial manager could have so 
 excelled in the mounting of Miss Peabody's "The Piper," 
 or of certain scenes in that peculiarly exotic piece, "The 
 Witch," which was Americanized from the Danish, or of 
 Shakespearean comedies. Besier's "Don" was enjoyable, 
 George Paston's "Nobody's Daughter" far above the 
 ordinary. In fact, the New Theatre idea cannot be called 
 a failure. 
 
 Mr. Ames created a position of Literary Director — a 
 person to be largely responsible for directing proper material 
 in New Theatre channels. After the first year, the scope of 
 this position was altered. In the first season, two thousand 
 manuscripts were read, and from this deluge, no great Ameri- 
 can product was forthcoming. Edward Sheldon's "The 
 Nigger," whose one excellence was its theatrical effect, 
 even though the arrangement of its historical ideas was 
 false to the South in the way that Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin " was false to the South — was a success. 
 
 In reviewing the New Theatre idea and its existence of 
 two years, I cannot but regard, with pleasurable feeling, 
 the Shakespearean productions. We advance by means 
 of our mistakes, and the Directors should have realized this. 
 They registered no vital complaint outside the fact of losing. 
 My grievance against the two seasons is directed against 
 the inability of the New Theatre to encourage the American 
 drama, even if it had had to offer special financial induce- 
 ments legitimately to take the American dramatist away 
 
288 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 from the commercial manager. Yet, when it came to select- 
 ing revivals from the American drama of the past, I would 
 sympathize with the quandary of any Director. For the 
 American drama is in the making, and a theatre cannot 
 support itself on experiments that fail. Even an art theatre, 
 however subsidized, must pay. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE ADVANCE OF AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 
 
 America in her turn has been affected by those forces whiqh 
 have resulted in a change of form and spirit in the drama of 
 continental countries. The slo\v^ infusion of ideas affecting 
 social and economic relations abroad, before the Great War, 
 has had its^ effect upon^the American stage. In the Nineties, 
 our so-called intellectual players were pioneers Jn introducing 
 Ibsen to the American public. Then, close upon the success 
 of the Norwegian, came, one by one, the performances of the 
 then considered advanced dramas of George Bernard Shaw 
 — plays " Pleasant and Unpleasant." 
 
 In a theatrical world which had heretofore been used only 
 to the conventional romantic and social drama of England, 
 these seemingly revolutionary plays were obliged to have 
 their due effect on the theatre-going public. It so happened 
 that the plays of Ibsen and Shaw were likewise readable plays; 
 they gained a foothold in the theatre just when reform or- 
 ganizations were working for the betterment of theatre audi- 
 ences, and were encouraging the reading of plays. Take into 
 consideration, therefore, the impulse to read, and the fact 
 that most of the dramas coming from abroad had literary 
 flavor, and it is readily seen that the changing spirit of mod- 
 ern drama would, in America, have two channels through 
 which to impress itself on the public — the theatre and the 
 printed book. 
 
 There has been a renaissance of interest in the theatre 
 
290 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 throughout the United States, as there has been a vast re- 
 naissance of interest in the theatre abroad. This popular 
 concern has expressed itself in several ways. In America it 
 has been fostered, very largely, through the aims and objects 
 and activities of the Drama League of America. If that 
 organization has done little more than awaken within people 
 a sense of the appreciation of drama in the printed form, it 
 has accomplished something of vast meaning which had not 
 heretofore been accomplished. To the Drama League, un- 
 doubtedly, belongs a large credit of having fostered this taste. 
 
 The interest thus furthered has met with self-conscious 
 response on the part of a vast public in America. It has, by 
 its own spontaneity, forced upon the universities and colleges 
 the necessity of considering modern drama and the modern 
 playhouse as subjects worthy to be included in the educa- 
 tional curriculum. This interest is not based upon any case 
 of special pleading. The New Theatre experiment failed 
 because of definite flaws in the conditions under which it 
 flourished for a few short years. That failure has had no 
 effect in discounting the hope for the future betterment of the 
 playhouse and of the play as seen in the present renaissance. 
 
 Through the energies of the Drama League, it has been 
 driven home to the theatre-going public in the United States 
 that the country has had a theatrical history in the past. 
 Not only have a large number of persons been made aware 
 of this history through ocular demonstration, in exhibits, 
 in special performances, and in magazine articles and lec- 
 tures, but the different periods of American drama have been 
 so thoroughly discussed that no writer to-day, in considering 
 the literature of America, would ignore the special field of 
 drama as it has been heretofore ignored. Texts of old Ameri- 
 can plays at one time unavailable, except in rare first editions, 
 have been made accessible through reprints. While it may 
 be claimed with some truth that the dialogue of the early 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 291 
 
 American drama is unliterary, it is nevertheless significant 
 in its social reflection — significant in so far as in most in- 
 stances it kept close to the soil and tried to reflect passing 
 national events. What better example of the Colonial spirit 
 of special pleading than in Robert Rogers' " Ponteach " ; what 
 clearer mirror of changing temper than in the "Military 
 Glory of Great Britain," or John Leacock's "The Fall of 
 British Tyranny"; what more fascinating comparison than 
 the dramatic work of the students of our American colleges 
 preceding the Revolution with the dramatic work of the stu- 
 dents in our American colleges to-day? The re-awakened 
 interest in the past of American Drama has impressed upon 
 the literary student the fact that equally as significant of 
 the temper of the American Revolution as the Revolutionary 
 broadsides and fiery political addresses, are the plays of Mrs. 
 Mercy Warren; that equally as valuable as state papers in 
 reflecting the spirited times of the opening of the Revolution 
 is Hugh Henry Brackenridge's "The Battle of Bunker's- 
 HiU." 
 
 In a preceding chapter some general idea has been given of 
 the trend in the development of American drama, from its 
 earliest period to the advent of Bronson Howard. The gaps 
 in the history, as indicated, have been very largely filled since 
 1910. Through the zealous researches of a few students, 
 valuable private collections of American dramas now preserve 
 for the future the whole history of the American theatre. 
 Where, heretofore, there was indifference regarding the fate 
 of American theatrical documents, there is now an awakened 
 interest in the preservation of those documents. The interest 
 has emphasized more and more the necessity of continuing to 
 preserve the best that has been done by the American drama- 
 tist; and of encouraging the younger dramatists to publish 
 their plays, especially in view of the fact that one of the char- 
 acteristics of the changing drama has been the improvement 
 
292 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 of the literary character of dramatic dialogue. One feels that 
 the limitation of Bronson Howard, as far as a future estimate 
 is concerned, rests in the unliterary character of his writing, 
 which was the dramatic style of his time. One feels that the 
 vitality in Clyde Fitch rests partly in the fact that he pos- 
 sessed a literary quality far above the style of many of his 
 contemporaries. One hails the publication of the plays by 
 Augustus Thomas because of the value a close study of their 
 workmanship will have for the student, oftentimes their 
 workmanship far exceeding the importance of the content of 
 the play. Now that the dramas of Charles Klein have been 
 published, one is able more closely to see those pitfalls in his 
 work which were covered up by the sheer force of the actable 
 quality of such dramas as "The Lion and the Mouse" and 
 "The Gamblers." 
 
 Such intensive study of the American drama as has been 
 taking place recently has necessarily resulted in some change 
 in critical point of view, not alone regarding the value of the 
 history of the past in the American theatre, but also in the 
 measurement of the contributions made by the American 
 dramatists of the past. The necessary increase in library 
 facilities to meet the new interest in drama has accentuated 
 and aggravated the question of the specialized theatrical 
 library, as outlined in the chapter on "The Need for a Dra- 
 matic Library." Appropriations are being set aside to sat- 
 isfy public interest in the reading of plays. The families of 
 those American dramatists, who are considered mile-posts in 
 the development, are helping to perpetuate the memory of 
 these dramatists by definite gifts for the enrichment of dra- 
 matic centres. Where, heretofore, the library of Bronson 
 Howard was left to the Dramatists Club, since 1910 the en- 
 tire estate of Bronson Howard has been turned over to the 
 same institution, which now acts as his literary executor. A 
 lectureship on drama has been established at Amherst in 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 293 
 
 memory of Clyde Fitch. And several movements have been 
 on foot since the death of Charles Klein on board the Lusi- 
 tania, to identify his name with the theatre which he always 
 served faithfully and earnestly. 
 
 These activities have not failed of their influence on the 
 rising generation of American playwrights. There are still 
 writers who feel compelled to the dramatic form, not because 
 of any definite instruction, but because their genius impels 
 them in that direction. But, since 1910, though there have 
 been many significant single plays, there has been no over- 
 topping accomplishment which would deserve a special and 
 lengthy consideration here. Some very hopeful signs have 
 been given that there is in the United States great poten- 
 tiality for the future of the American theatre. One cannot 
 look without encouragement toward a number of new men 
 whose work, while not fully comparable with the work of the 
 literary and realistic school of playwrights in England, never- 
 theless measures a change for the better in spirit and tech- 
 nique. Every year some new name is added to the already 
 ample list of American dramatists — a name brought into 
 prominence by phenomenal success. This success may not 
 be sufficiently assuring to guarantee a permanent position, 
 but at least it demonstrates that the theatrical activity is a 
 healthy and insistent one. 
 
 We need not be disappointed over American dramatic 
 energy which is contributed to the theatre. So rapidly has 
 the increase taken place that such men as Bronson Howard, 
 Clyde Fitch, and James A. Heme may now be regarded as 
 pioneers rather than as actual forces in the theatre. Others 
 have followed in their wake — men with more originality, 
 with more technical freedom, and with more artistry in the 
 creation of types. Some of them have been knocking at the 
 door for recognition these many years, and have only just 
 met with success. 
 
294 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 There are those who still believe that William Vaughn 
 Moody's "The Great Divide" struck the highest note yet 
 reached in American drama. While a vast amount of dra- 
 matic effectiveness may be recognized in that play, Moody 
 should be estimated primarily as a distinctive poet, interested 
 in the dramatic form, but not master of it. Much more sure 
 in form is Eugene Walter, though commercial demands have 
 pushed him into hasty work. But even in his plays, Mr. 
 Walter shows a certain vigor. "The Wolf" was not a great 
 play, but it was an effective melodrama. "Paid in Full," 
 which has served as model for so many imitators, had the 
 virtue of one character who was virtueless: the clerk who 
 pushes his wife into compromising herself. "Fine Feathers," 
 three times rewritten before it succeeded on the stage, pos- 
 sessed tenseness of purpose. But the top-notch of Mr. 
 Walter's activity so far remains " The Easiest Way " — in 
 its technique, in its poignancy of characterization, and in its 
 liveness of theme. Though lacking in brilliancy, it is the best 
 work an American dramatist has done in recent times. One 
 may say this truthfully, fully aware of the literary value of 
 many of Clyde Fitch's plays, and recognizing the easy grace 
 with which Augustus Thomas writes dialogue. 
 
 On the whole, it would seem that what is the matter with 
 most of our American drama of recent years is that it lacks 
 conviction of the larger kind — conviction as to our national 
 aims, as to our individual destiny, as to our moral standards. 
 We have had occasion to note it before. This defect may be 
 attributable to the fact that the American dramatist has 
 always possessed the facile ability to paint things as they are, 
 in their surface relations — an ability which all the younger 
 writers possess to a surprising degree. 
 
 When an author approaches a certain phase of human 
 activity with authority, combining a thorough knowledge of 
 the subject with an artistic handling of the human qualities 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 295 
 
 of his characters, the result is something very close to life. 
 In England, John Galsworthy is endowed with a social con- 
 science, one which is turning him into a citizen playwright of 
 the most forceful sort. In "Justice" he sounds the note of 
 the social reformer humanized; his vision is philosophic and 
 brutally poignant. Earlier in the chronological order of 
 presentment, "The Silver Box" discusses two standards of 
 justice, showing their causes and effects in striking situations. 
 There has been a consistent development in Galsworthy's 
 work along definite lines of interest, conviction, and vision. 
 In his artistic treatment, he has developed a sense of "the 
 irony of things" that serves to make the situations with 
 which he deals richer and deeper in their lasting quality. 
 
 Since 1910, the American stage has witnessed flashes of the 
 same thing, but the flashes have not been sustained. We 
 were given a play by Charles Kenyon called "Kindling," 
 sincere in its treatment of the tenement problem, combining 
 effectiveness of scene with feeling for character: there was 
 also in it the earnestness of a man who felt deeply the subject 
 he was exploiting. Yet "Kindling" failed after a struggle 
 for existence. It was battered here and there until, through 
 the assistance of the Drama League, it met with success in 
 Chicago. But it was not a box-office success which, accord- 
 ing to the commercial theatre, a play must be in order that it 
 remain in the running; it was neither so startling in its situa- 
 tions nor so alluring in its sex appeal as to attract Broadway 
 audiences. Then Kenyon, who is a San Francisco newspaper 
 man, possessed of a rare sense of what Galsworthy calls 
 "the irony of life," wrote another play, "Husband and 
 Wife," and it was marked by seriousness of purpose and orig- 
 inality of treatment, even though it was the old-time, hack- 
 neyed subject treated by Eugene Walter in "Fine Feathers," 
 of married people living beyond their means, and pushed into 
 speculation through the swift pace of American life. Some 
 
296 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 time in the immediate future, Mr. Kenyon will be recognized 
 for his intent purpose and his strong, virile, original handling 
 of American character. 
 
 A man of greater activity and of the same order of ear- 
 nestness^is Joseph Medill Patterson, who has put his social 
 conscience into civic practice, as well as giving it artistic ex- 
 pression. In his " Little Brother of the Rich," "The Fourth 
 Estate," and "Rebellion," he showed his interest in matters 
 pertaining to the public good and his concern about certain 
 problems in city life. He is one of the few men writing drama 
 who has consistently developed along the line of his own con- 
 viction; who reveals a definite habit of thought. His news- 
 paper experience has left him with a set social purpose. He 
 lacks brilliancy of touch, as well as lightness of sentiment. 
 His plays are drab and melodramatic; he is not always sure 
 in his technique. But he is not shifting in his standards, as 
 so many of our younger playwrights are. 
 
 I do not want a dramatist to steep all his plays in the same 
 color; if he has the ability to surprise us with an entire 
 change in technique and style each time he writes a play, 
 such facility will proclaim him a genius, without mannerism 
 and without trickery. For mere playwriting, as opposed to 
 the genuine genius of the dramatist, is a matter of manner 
 and trickery. But the genuine play is that which contains, 
 not only manner and legitimate trickery, but personal con- 
 viction besides. The American dramatist has not always 
 approached his subject with authority or with personal 
 conviction. 
 
 The uncertain stability of conviction is seen in the work of 
 Edward Sheldon, who, since his very beginning, has exhibited 
 an expertness in technique, and a variety in subject matter, 
 which are unusual in the younger men of the theatre. After 
 he left Harvard, as a student of Professor Baker in "Work- 
 shop 47," when "Salvation Nell" was produced, he was 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 297 
 
 rightly hailed as a new and hopeful sign. He had come from 
 the university atmosphere with an observation not centred 
 on traditional things, but fresh for the newer life-stuff around 
 him. It was rugged work, dependent largely upon what 
 Mrs. Fiske put into it as a stage-manager; but there was 
 sincerity in it to the end. When he undertook, in "The 
 Nigger," to treat the Southern negro problem, he was found 
 to have a quick sense of the dramatic elements in the thesis, 
 without having a very sound or deep idea of the social prob- 
 lem he sought to discuss. 
 
 Then plays began to come thick and fast from the pen of 
 Mr. Sheldon — one, "The Boss," based on the reading of an 
 editorial in a magazine. His quickness to sense theatricalism 
 has always been uppermost since he left Harvard, but in no 
 way has he shown a vivid insight into condition. Contrast 
 "Salvation Nell" with Shaw's "Major Barbara." We did 
 not expect Sheldon to come from college with full-fledged 
 Fabian wisdom at his finger-tips, but we have seen since that 
 time no disposition on his part to enrich his understanding of 
 men and condition. He is still hasty, crude; and he leans 
 heavily on his ability to marshal detail. That is why, so 
 often, we find Sheldon's energy expended in revising the 
 work of other people; we find him filling the position which 
 recent years have created in the theatre — the position of 
 "Play-Doctor," where half-baked dramas are turned over 
 to those who, like Sheldon and George Broadhurst, are 
 skilled in the mere mechanics of stage structure, and who try 
 to strengthen and fortify. Even the time expended by Shel- 
 don in a clever though valueless dramatization of Suder- 
 mann's "Song of Songs" would have been more wisely spent 
 on an original play, though the results showed his abiUty as 
 a dramatizer. 
 
 In other words, Edward Sheldon has not yet placed him- 
 self definitely in the development of American drama. Read 
 
298 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 *'The Nigger" and then realize how lacking in profundity it 
 is, with little reflection of the true characteristics of the 
 Negro. Note the difference in methods between his "Ro- 
 mance" and Clyde Fitch's "Captain Jinks of the Horse 
 Marines"; you will discover Sheldon's inability to absorb 
 atmosphere and Fitch's excellent power of identifying him- 
 self with the past. Sheldon has been in the theatrical game 
 long enough to have ripened in his vision. He has done work 
 which, on better judgment, he should have refused to do. 
 He drives his fancy and fails to catch the spirit of Hans 
 Andersen in his version of "The Mermaid," called "The 
 Garden of Paradise." He becomes specious in the "Song of 
 Songs," where the technique should have been that of Pi- 
 nero's " Iris." His exuberant dramatic sense is what we want 
 protected. He seems to be feeling around everywhere, with- 
 out fully deciding for himself what this life is all about. It 
 is this very separating of his interest which hurts his value 
 and his effectiveness. Yet his versatiHty makes us persist 
 in the hope of his finding, some day, his equihbrium. He 
 needs the reducing glass to restrict his observation and to 
 make it deeper and more intense. Such a play as "The 
 High Road" is justification of this statement; therein he is 
 true to his moral purpose, but he does not concentrate. 
 
 A number of years ago, when Thomas and Fitch loomed 
 on the dramatic horizon as the most permanent dramatic 
 figures, Charles Klein and George Broadhurst were knocking 
 at the door for entrance. Klein was laboring over the libretto 
 of "El Capitan," and Broadhurst was writing farces. They 
 had not made for themselves the fortunes which were later in 
 store for them. In a previous chapter Klein has been dis- 
 cussed. Broadhurst's " Bought and Paid For," written since 
 1910, was hailed as the play of the hour. In his work are 
 centred all the external problems which interest our younger 
 dramatists. "Bought and Paid For" exempKfied the very 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 299 
 
 faults which mark the American dramatist. It created one 
 type which is a real contribution, and let the rest of the 
 drama follow the line of least resistance — the line of theat- 
 rical appeal. The mystery is that, with the ability to create 
 one type truly excellent, the dramatist should fling upon the 
 boards other characters that are shallow and undeveloped. 
 In "Bought and Paid For," Broadhurst displayed an amount 
 of glitter which may always be gained by having a poor girl 
 marry a fabulously wealthy man; he worked his material up 
 to one scene of revolt where the drunken husband becomes a 
 beast to his wife. 
 
 All of this is external, the tinkhng cymbal and the sounding 
 brass. It is easy to thrash out such a plot, if you have the 
 technical ability. But it is not easy to create such a charac- 
 ter as Jimmie, the clerk-brother-in-law, who is consumingly 
 satisfied with himself. Were the other characters as human, 
 the play would be worthy the dramatic success it had. 
 Broadhurst, thus far, has only shown a superficial ability. 
 W^en he wrote "The Man of the Hour" he was following 
 in the channel created by Klein's " The Lion and the Mouse." 
 
 You cannot cover a play over with a false gloss and pass it 
 off as understanding. Had this gloss not been one of the 
 essential reasons for the success of Louis K. Anspacher's 
 "The Unchastened Woman," had he not been moved pri- 
 marily by the external theatricalism of the situation, had he 
 not placed his faith in the false sparkle of dramatic effective- 
 ness, he would have written a very big play. This much, 
 however, can be said for "The Unchastened Woman": that 
 in it the dramatist accomplished a distinct feat; he created 
 a character-study in his heroine worthy of Mrs. Humphry 
 Ward or Mrs. Edith Wharton, and he developed that char- 
 acter with unerring understanding of her essential weakness, 
 keeping her development consistent to the end. But the de- 
 fect of the play, seen as much in the printed script as in the 
 
300 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 acting, was to be found in the incomplete social fervor in- 
 jected into it, the bad taste of socialized preachment. These 
 side-issues distracted the attention of the audience away 
 from the real concern of the play. The fact is Mr. Anspacher 
 wrote a drama which, through the dominant character of its 
 heroine, excelled Broadhurst's "Bought and Paid For," but 
 which was spoiled for further claim to distinction by the very 
 defects which earned its Broadway acceptance. His theme 
 was not built on any constructive view of life. 
 
 These stereotyped phases are what have, in many ways, 
 handicapped Bayard Veiller, for so long a while regarded 
 as an excellent example of the "disappointed playwright." 
 Then came the phenomenal success of his play, " Within the 
 Law," a splendid example of the newspaper type, theatrically 
 effective and holding, because of the novelty of its inventive- 
 ness and the timeliness of its police and gang problem. 
 While its success was disproportionate to its literary merit, 
 yet its nearness to popular interest — the interest in the 
 trials of a New York policeman — was its one claim to vital- 
 ity. In "The Fight," another of Veiller's plays, he was far 
 more sincere, far more logical. The American dramatist 
 oftentimes does not solve for himself the problem he has in 
 hand; he more than likely leads his play into moralless 
 channels. "Within the Law" upholds effectively the eva- 
 sion of the law. The audience is blinded into lauding such 
 evasion, because of the stress of sympathy for the characters. 
 
 One mentions Veiller's name in connection with the class 
 of American playwright of which he is an excellent example. 
 His inventiveness is external; he is clever in marshaling 
 external details. His latest success, "The 13th Chair," 
 travels on its sheer interest as a bit of fiction; the characters 
 are mere pegs in the unraveling of a plot which is cleverly 
 conceived and skilfully put together. 
 
 The unfortunate circumstance is that the younger Ameri- 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 301 
 
 can playwright is developing in an atmosphere of external 
 influences rather than of intellectual stimulation. He has 
 interpreted the stage as a place where novelty is to be sold 
 at so much a seat, for which a compensating royalty return 
 is to be expected. He has witnessed the tremendous inroads 
 of the moving-picture on the legitimate theatre, and has 
 tried, in some respects, to keep pace with the rapid movement 
 of the celluloid drama. In fact, the technique of the moving- 
 picture has come in to divert the attention of the younger 
 dramatist away from the good effects which his reading of 
 literary plays was having on his mental approach toward the 
 theatre. Have we not heard such a writer of popular fiction 
 as Rex Beach assert that the techniques of novel writing 
 and of the short story were being materially affected by the 
 nervous structure of the mechanical theatre? Have we not 
 already seen this technique making inroads on the theatre 
 itself in such a popular play as Elmer Reizenstein's "On 
 Trial" — where the unities of time and place are relegated 
 to the limbo of useless things? In the adoption of this new 
 technique, Reizenstein legitimately made use of something 
 novel and external. But the mere mechanicalness of the 
 structure took away from the value as a living piece of work. 
 Reizenstein is one of the young men whose interest in the 
 theatre has come from no self-conscious approach toward it. 
 Other work of his, not yet popularly presented before the 
 public, has shown that he is influenced by the continental 
 technique and has hearkened to some of the forceful ideas 
 underlying the changing modern drama. He cannot be esti- 
 mated on one success. 
 
 It is encouraging to see how unexpectedly the dramatic 
 instinct springs up in different directions. But we still have 
 to hold to our statement made in a previous chapter that, 
 very largely, the American dramatist's training has been 
 received from newspaper work. One of our most hopeful 
 
302 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 writers of the younger generation is A. E. Thomas, author of 
 "Her Husband's Wife" and "The Rainbow." His career is 
 truly representative of the career of many of the younger 
 men of the theatre. He was a student at Brown University. 
 From college he went to New York, where for two years he 
 served as a dramatic critic on The Sun, following Walter P. 
 Eaton. There he had ample opportunity to observe hov\^ 
 plays should not be written. But very wisely he slipped out 
 of the job just as soon as he began to practise what he 
 preached as a critic. Many of his plays have freshness of 
 character and are full of wholesome sentiment. Sometimes 
 that sentiment becomes over-proportioned, as in " Come Out 
 of the Kitchen," based on a novel of sentimental character. 
 
 In the instance of A. E. Thomas we may ask whether, at 
 the present time, it would even be wise to attempt to fix his 
 position in the development. He is a man of the theatre, and 
 a man of the theatre is fortunate if, after long service, he can 
 escape into the rare atmosphere of the dramatist. One can 
 only say that he is the author of a play, "Her Husband's 
 Wife," which, to quote Mr. Eaton's words regarding it, 
 "was written solely to be acted, with no thought of the 
 printed page in mind." The conclusion that it has survived 
 because it is a good play is sufficient reason for anyone. We 
 can only take the play on its individual merit, and let the 
 full credit go until the time for final estimate. 
 
 The constant frequenter of the theatre sees many hopeful 
 signs for the American playwright of the future — signs 
 which in some instances are fully realized, and in other in- 
 stances fade entirely away after one success. "Years of Dis- 
 cretion," by Frederic Hatton, a Chicago dramatic critic, in 
 collaboration with his wife, contained many elements worthy 
 of the American theatre. So did Ahce Bradley's " The Gov- 
 ernor's Lady," Richard Walton Tully's "The Bird of Para- 
 dise," and Clare Kummer's "A Successful Calamity." 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 303 
 
 A drama that can boast of Winchell Smith's " The Fortune 
 Hunter/' or "The Boomerang," or "Turn to the Right"; a 
 drama that can produce such types of farce as Augustin 
 McHugh's "Officer 666," or Roi Megrue's "It Pays to Ad- 
 vertise"; a drama that can show elements of dexterity and 
 worthiness Hke those in Edward Childs Carpenter's "The 
 Cinderella Man" and Paul Dickey's "The Misleading 
 Lady"; a drama of this calibre is not lacking in potential 
 vigor or strength. One can turn to James Forbes's "The 
 Chorus Lady" and say that, as a reflection of a particular 
 atmosphere, it is an excellently done piece of theatrical 
 work; but there is in it not even that vivid inner emotional- 
 ism which the French use to such advantage in "Zaza." 
 One can turn to William De Milie's " The Woman," and in 
 comparison with his earlier workmanship, shown in " Strong- 
 heart" and "The Warrens of Virginia," conclude that his 
 cleverness might be pledged to sounder work. De Mille is 
 not as definitely connected with the dramatic movement of 
 the present, as his father, Henry De Mille, was with the 
 dramatic movement of the past, when, in collaboration with 
 David Belasco, he wrote such domestic pieces as "The Wife" 
 and "The Charity Ball." 
 
 One might say that a writer on the theatre is justified in 
 devoting a close study to the plays by Hartley Manners — 
 such plays, for example, as "The House Next Door," which 
 showed excellent scope in characterization, and as "Peg o' 
 My Heart," whose sentiment was inspiration for many plays 
 of a similar kind. But though Manners is one whose ap- 
 proach toward the theatre is always sincere and earnest, he 
 is not yet convinced of his real purpose as a dramatist. He 
 is another example of a valuable potentiality in the theatre, 
 waiting for some tremendous power of spiritual and intel- 
 lectual conviction to move him to the adoption of some point 
 of view which will stamp him in all his plays. 
 
304 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 The dramatists themselves cannot be blamed for this 
 casual manner of using dramatic technique. One must blame 
 the drama spirit of the time in America preceding the Great 
 War. 
 
 When we come to consider the new forces in the playhouse 
 which are resulting in the establishment of Little Theatres, we 
 shall see wherein the dramatist will be able to find his intel- 
 lectual and spiritual level. Certain it is that, since 1910, more 
 writers with a literary sense than ever before have turned to 
 the theatre, not as a means of profit but as a medium in which 
 to work seriously. Winthrop Ames's $10,000 prize, offered 
 some years ago, was awarded to Alice Brown for her "Chil- 
 dren of Earth," a drama which, even though it may not have 
 been perfect in workmanship or consistent in development, at 
 least showed the effect a definite atmosphere may have on 
 playwriting. The New England spirit in "Children of 
 Earth" was much more deeply ingrained than the New Eng- 
 land spirit which William Vaughn Moody tried to suggest 
 in "The Great Divide." 
 
 We find the literary man approaching the theatre with 
 strong desire to introduce therein certain new elements. 
 Though he may not have been as successful as Maurice 
 Maeterlinck in the creation of psychological effects, never- 
 theless, Theodore Dreiser's application of spiritual and 
 psychological states of mind to local condition in his volume 
 of "Plays of the Natural and Supernatural," is an encourag- 
 ing sign of originality. 
 
 I emphasize the activity in this cursory manner because it 
 is the only way of reaching a fair estimate of the vitality of 
 the dramatic soil in America. These men and women writing 
 occasional comedies and occasional farces need not neces- 
 sarily be considered on their individual merit. To obtain 
 any hope out of the activity which crops up in the most un- 
 expected quarters, we must take the result and note the; 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 305 
 
 tendency. The product is not stagnant, as some critics seem 
 to think; it is simply scattered and lacking in direction. 
 George Ade contributed something to the movement in 
 American drama, something as distinctly national as Mark 
 Twain, though not as dominantly so. He appears within 
 recent times to have dropped out of the running, leaving the 
 field to George Cohan, whose plays are farcical, ironical, 
 redolent with types, and kinetoscopical. 
 
 Having thus given some idea of the advance of the Ameri- 
 can drama since 1910 — that is, the American drama as re- 
 flected on the stage — it has been saved for the last to point 
 out the high-water mark of execution. So far the hopeful 
 signs have been indicated. Were one asked to mention the 
 significant dramas written within recent years, one would 
 naturally put in the first group William Vaughn Moody's 
 "The Great Divide" and Eugene Walter's "The Easiest 
 Way." In the second group one might be justified in placing 
 Augustus Thomas's "The Witching Hour" and "As a Man 
 Thinks," with Clyde Fitch's "The City." 
 
 In the third group, one places quite alone, as an example 
 of imaginative value, Benrimo and Hazleton's " The Yellow 
 Jacket." This play deserves special comment, for it is one 
 of the rarest American examples of creative and poetic drama. 
 Since its first production on November 4, 1912, it has had 
 an interesting and precarious existence. For "The Yellow 
 Jacket," when it was first given to the jaded tastes of Broad- 
 way, was caviare to the many who were puzzled by the 
 conventions of the Chinese stage as utilized by these two 
 authors. The public could not reconcile the curious manner 
 with the beautiful poetry of the fines. " The Yellow Jacket" 
 was talked into success, and to-day it stands as a very dis- 
 tinctive example of imaginative work. Chinese theatrical 
 eccentricity is cleverly manipulated with exquisite precision, 
 and in no way do the external color and picturesqueness de- 
 
306 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 tract from the complete understanding of the human and 
 poetic qualities of the story. In "The Yellow Jacket" one 
 begins to understand how quickening an imaginative drama 
 is to the imagination of an audience; one appreciates the 
 vitality of the Elizabethan audience which could imagine all 
 the scenic possibilities of Shakespearian plays better without 
 having to clutter the stage with externals. As the authors 
 declare in their foreword to the printed play, "It might be 
 said in a Chinese way that scenery is as big as your imagina- 
 tion." So we might add that the beauties of " The Yellow 
 Jacket" are apparent only to those whose imagination is as 
 big as the beautiful scene conceived by the authors. 
 
 Since writing " The Yellow Jacket/' Hazleton has not been 
 heard from. He has contented himself with the reputation 
 gained from that play in countries abroad as well as through- 
 out the United States. Benrimo, an actor with experience 
 acquired under Belasco, has only recently produced another 
 play, Japanese in tone and in legend, entitled "The Willow 
 Tree." It is devoid of the poetry of "The Yellow Jacket," 
 devoid of the deeper human reflections, and self-conscious 
 in its theatrical novelty. It is as though Benrimo, having 
 had one success, had said to himself, "Go to, — I will write 
 another play as novel as 'The Yellow Jacket,' and one as 
 appealing in its color as * Madame Butterfly,' by Belasco and 
 Long." But this he has not succeeded in doing. 
 
 We were encouraged further in the direction of imagina- 
 tive drama by the presentation of Eleanor Gates's "The 
 Poor Little Rich Girl." It succeeded because of the novelty 
 of its theme and the skilfulness of its commingling of con- 
 scious with unconscious elements. Through the sheer force 
 of its imaginative appeal it overtowered the defects of its 
 construction — defects which the dramatist did not attempt 
 to obliterate in the next play she wrote. 
 ' "The Yellow Jacket" and "The Poor Little Rich Girl" 
 
AMERICAN DRAMA SINCE 1910 307 
 
 indicate that there is in America an ability to create some- 
 thing which is not purely realistic; to make use of the poetical 
 in such way as to counteract the undramatic. Even Percy 
 Mackaye has, in later years, shown that Pegasus can be 
 put into the harness of theatrical restrictions. His play, 
 "A Thousand Years Ago," came much nearer the require- 
 ments of the stage than many of his more ambitious plays 
 of earlier years. Mackaye, since 1910, has learned better 
 the laws of dramaturgy. His self-conscious study of form 
 has brought his methods of thinking within bounds. We 
 find him zealously and earnestly studying the true propor- 
 tions of the pageant and of the masque. We find him manip- 
 ulating skilfully his old play, "The Canterbury Pilgrims," 
 and turning it into a libretto which is a rehef from the con- 
 ventional, stilted, mechanical librettos of the past. 
 
 ^very great success of our current stage means that the 
 ^dramatist who has thus passed across the foothghts into 
 public favor has in addition made for himself a comfortable 
 income. But the art of play-writing takes time to mature. 
 A play is not a mere matter of haste and slap-dash. The 
 wonder is, therefore, that these men and women of one suc- 
 cess, who can afford thereafter to move slowly, are not more 
 exact, more careful in what they do. 
 
 Giving the people what they want does not necessarily 
 mean that one is free to give along the lines of least resist- 
 ance. By all means let the dramatist think of the theatre 
 first, and the theatre of his own time. Let him follow the 
 newspaper. Let him go to the four corners of the globe for 
 material, if he wants to. The only condition shall be that 
 when he puts pen to paper, he shall have made clear to him- 
 self the thing he has to say. 
 
 What our theatre needs to-day is not drama slavishly de- 
 pendent on models reaching us from abroad; we need re- 
 cruits in the theatre who can do plain thinking and high 
 
308 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 thinking; who are logical and convincing. Out of such quali- 
 ties will a great American drama come, and there are evi- 
 dences that it is coming. I do not want the literary man 
 without a knowledge of the peculiar demands of the theatre 
 to monopoHze the playhouse. Henry James, WiUiam Dean 
 Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich never wrote successful 
 plays, because they would never recognize the technique of 
 the drama as different from and more difficult than the tech- 
 nique of the novel. 
 
 There has never been a time when the dramatic impulse 
 in the country was so wide-spread. Out of it there should 
 come something more permanent than there has come al- 
 ready. Among the younger generation of writers there are 
 ample signs of potential strength. But they are dramatists 
 of one success. Truly should it be said that by their works 
 rather than by their one work shall they be fully judged.^ 
 
 * A short list of recent American dramas is to be found on pages 
 329, 330. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 
 
 The craze for Little Theatres, which has developed to such 
 extensive proportions throughout this country in the last 
 few years, is a queer mixture of the unthinking amateur 
 spirit, with a true, sincere spirit of revolt against art com- 
 mercialized. WTiether or not the experiments being made by 
 so many ambitious and independent groups of young artistic 
 people will ever result in any appreciable effect on the real 
 theatrical situation will depend, very largely, upon how far 
 the spirit of revolt in the future is nurtured independently of 
 the amateur. 
 
 There are seventy or eighty independent and distinctive 
 little art centres in the United States, all working definitely 
 for the improvement of the drama, for the betterment of the 
 dramatists, and in the interest of a public demanding higher 
 forms of entertainment. These centres are sign-posts of the 
 restlessness of the theatre-going public. They are sign-posts 
 of the self-conscious attack being made on old-time methods 
 of art exploitation. Their significance is being discussed in 
 open convention and in magazine articles. Their policies 
 are being criticized and lauded in the newspapers of the day. 
 Their common characteristics have been unified and discussed 
 in books on the theatre, — with the result that the move- 
 ment is now widely recognized as a force likely to change the 
 dramatic product of the future. 
 
 The wide geographical distribution of Little Theatres — 
 
310 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 from coast to coast in fact — indicates that there is a mass of 
 art feehng in this country which, for want of a well-stated 
 and clearly understood philosophy of art, is gaining satisfac- 
 tion by imitating the work accomplished in the foreign theatre 
 before the outbreak of the present war (1917). What will 
 follow the revolt, as carried on in the Little Theatre groups, 
 will depend in the future on how soon the real leaders in the 
 revolt strike out along paths of native originality. An art 
 movement that is merely imitative, that is merely receptive 
 of ideas formulated and executed elsewhere, that is not cog- 
 nizant of its own en\aronment, is likely to fall into the slough 
 of borrowed and ill-digested ideals, and to assume lightly 
 a morality which does not apply imminently to its own 
 existence. 
 
 We hear a great deal about Little Theatres. A whole 
 book has been written on the subject by Constance D'Arcy 
 Mackay. We hear a great deal about "Community Thea- 
 tres" in this country. But when we approach the communal 
 idea, we must realize that it applies not only to Little Theatres, 
 but is the underlying factor in pageantry, masques, and out- 
 door performances given in Greek Theatres and forest groves. 
 Percy Mackaye has written an exhaustive treatise on the 
 subject in a book entitled "The Civic Theatre." Mackaye 
 has much to justify his hope for a Civic Theatre. Pageants 
 are multiplying, universities are showing wider interests in 
 the play, audiences are organizing into Drama Leagues 
 and Stage Societies, and educators are using the pageant and 
 dance as essential elements in the training of youth. Mr. 
 Mackaye's civic idea is of even broader and more far-reaching 
 effect than the idea of the Community Theatre, though they 
 both take their root of being in the will of the people. The 
 Civic Theatre Movement is democratic. So is the little 
 Theatre Movement, though not as sweeping in its application. 
 
 When we examine the repertories of the Little Theatres, 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 311 
 
 in the hope of discovering something in them bearing directly 
 on the community, we most Hkely find Schnitzler's " Anatole" 
 gasping for Kfe in the arid bad-lands of Arizona! We can 
 expect little impress from such misplaced enthusiasm. There 
 is much incongruity in the selection of repertories for the 
 theatres of isolated communities. When attention is called 
 to such incongruity, these ambitious groups of art revolu- 
 tionists give no heed; they lose sight of their raison d'etre 
 in a wild, conceited defiance of the well-tried economic law 
 of supply and demand — a law which governs art as well as 
 commerce. 
 
 Never yet has a Director of one of these Little Theatres 
 failed, when asked to justify the existence of the Little 
 Theatre, to discuss very volubly the underlying impulse 
 which governed the Abbey Theatre and the Manchester 
 Theatre, and which resulted in the creation of native schools 
 of drama in England and in Ireland. But one soon finds that 
 these Directors have given scant thought to the social condi- 
 tions which created such art centres in Great Britain. Their 
 effectiveness was due, very largely, to the fact that they en- 
 couraged native playwrights who were endowed with common 
 tradition, with sympathetic national vision, and with an 
 individual dramatic gift, together with a literary sense of the 
 fitness of things. 
 
 At the time of the establishment of the Irish National 
 Dramatic Society, W. B. Yeats was asked to state the object 
 of the movement, and he did so in these words : 
 
 "Our movement is a return to the people . . . and the 
 drama of society would but magnify a condition of life which 
 the countryman and the artisan could but copy to their hurt. 
 The play that is to give them a quite natural pleasure should 
 either tell them of their own life, or of that life of poetry 
 where every man can see his own image, because there alone 
 does human nature escape from arbitrary conditions. Plays 
 
312 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 about drawing-rooms are written for the middle classes of 
 great cities, for the classes who live in drawing-rooms, but if 
 you would uplift the man of the roads you must write about 
 the roads, or about the people of romance, or about great his- 
 torical people.'* 
 
 This statement by Yeats may not be the whole truth under- 
 lying the history of the Irish Theatre, but it does measure 
 some of the community fervor and spirit prompting the Irish 
 dramatists. When these writers, under the inspiration of 
 Yeats and Miss Horniman, discovered themselves, it was 
 not in any laboratory the self-revelation was made, even 
 though most of them approached their work with the definite 
 idea that they would do for their own land what Ibsen had 
 done for the Scandinavian countries. They instinctively 
 felt pledged to a reflection of the life they knew well, in plays 
 which were to appeal through character, problem, tragedy, 
 and humor to those who knew that life. 
 
 Of course one does not care to emphasize too insistently 
 the community idea as it applies to dramatic writing, for 
 fear of its narrowing the general appeal of the playwright. 
 Many dramas in the Irish repertory, notably those by S. L. 
 Robinson and T. C. Murray, were so local as to be hardly 
 understood outside their own environment. Miss Baker's 
 " Chains, " produced in New York, v/as brought to ruin in a 
 frantic effort to adapt its English condition to American 
 understanding. J. O. Francis's "Change," despite its in- 
 tellectual appeal of syndicalism, was too Welsh, too non- 
 conformist; Granville Barker's "Waste" was too Enghsh in 
 its politics; Githa Sowerby's "Rutherford and Sons" and 
 Stanley Houghton's "Hindle Wakes" were too middle-class 
 in their morality for American comprehension. 
 
 Yet these plays were born of the direct spirit which prompts 
 the community idea in the Little Theatres to-day. They were 
 given in the most adequate and least expensive manner. 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 313 
 
 pointing to a tendency, which is rapidly gaining headway in 
 the theatre, to present the very best the drama affords in the 
 most inexpensive manner. We wonder if there will arrive a 
 time when a Wisconsin or a Michigan or a California play- 
 wright will, under the inspiration of the community idea, 
 write plays so aloof from the life of Boston, New York, and 
 Philadelphia, as to be scarcely understood by the cosmo- 
 politan audiences of those cities. We do not think that such 
 will be the case. 
 
 But we do see a hope that, in the establishment of Little 
 Theatres, groups of playwrights will spring up throughout 
 the country, pledged, as the Irish Players were pledged, to a 
 reflection of the problems and ideals of the immediate com- 
 munity. This country is large enough and diversified enough, 
 geographically and temperamentally, to foster such a variety. 
 Already such groups have come to the front, conscious of 
 working for a common cause. While we cannot point, with 
 any too much pride, to the native plays produced by the 
 Washington Square writers, none the less have they developed 
 out of a spirit of artistic cooperation, and they have issued a 
 volume which is measure of the type of work done by them. 
 In his preface, the Director, Edward Goodman, has this to 
 say : " So far we have produced thirty-two plays, of one-act 
 and greater length, and of these twenty have been American. 
 The emphasis of our interest has been placed on the American 
 playwright, because we feel that no American theatre can 
 be really successful unless it develops a native drama to present 
 and interpret those emotions, ideas, characters, and condi- 
 tions with which we, as Americans, are primarily concerned. 
 Of these twenty American plays the Drama League has 
 selected four for this volume of its series. Excluding comment 
 on my farce ... I think it may be said that these repre- 
 sent a fair example of the success the Players have met with 
 in trying to encourage the writing of American plays with 
 
314 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 * freshness and sincerity of theme and development; skil- 
 ful delineation of character; non-didactic presentation of 
 an idea; and dramatic and esthetic effectiveness without 
 theatricalism.' " 
 
 Tliis, therefore, is the commendable purpose of the dram- 
 atists of the Washington Square school. But one cannot 
 quite discover the dominant Americanism in what they have 
 thus far done, nor in the plays that have been published. 
 
 The Wisconsin book of plays, issued under the encourage- 
 ment of Professor Thomas H. Dickinson, illustrates that, 
 without any propaganda effort, a few playwrights can pro- 
 duce something of community value. This intent is shown 
 in Dickinson's foreword, wherein he writes : " The majority of 
 the plays in the series belong to the repertory of the Society 
 [Wisconsin Dramatic Society], and have been presented in 
 regular performances in Madison and Milwaukee, and on 
 tour in other places in the Middle West. The authors of these 
 plays disclaim any desire whatever to inaugurate a new order 
 of play-writing. Their chief purpose, aside from the personal 
 motive that impels every work jof art, has been to provide for 
 the section in which they live the impulse of the practise of an 
 art as a corrective of standards, as distinguished from the 
 principle of a referendum of standards to the people." 
 
 This would appear to be much nearer the idea prompting 
 the Irish National Theatre and the Manchester Theatre 
 than the efforts of the Washington Square Players as ex- 
 pressed by their Director. 
 
 In a similar spirit the Provincetown Players banded them- 
 selves together, cast in a mould which distinguishes them from 
 the other groups working along the same line of revolt. " The 
 present organization," so the prospectus runs, " is the outcome 
 of a group of people interested in the theatre, who gathered 
 spontaneously, during two summers, at Provincetown, Mass., 
 for the purpose of writing, producing and acting their own 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 315 
 
 plays." For a statement of intention, this comment is un- 
 satisfactory and ill-digested, nor do the plays issued by them 
 in any way show that their dissatisfaction over the theatre 
 has resulted in anything with which they might be justly 
 satisfied. 
 
 Unfortunately, our present art restlessness in this country 
 has been brought about by an external irritation. The 
 English revolt against the theatre, at its very outset, began 
 in pregnant times — the significant Nineties of the last 
 century. This revolt had the advantage of a tradition im- 
 mediately back of it, represented by William Morris and John 
 Ruskin. It gained its greatest strength in the well-founded 
 principles of Fabian socialism. In this atmosphere, the 
 younger men, who afterwards became England's "new" 
 dramatists, among whom Shaw was the dominant personality, 
 were taught to think sanely about social conditions and, what 
 is more significant, to think logically. The advance movement 
 in England was fostered by J. T. Grein's Independent Thea- 
 tre, the Stage Society, Granville Barker's Court Theatre, 
 and, finally, Charles Frohman's Repertory Theatre. 
 
 The revolt against the existing theatrical condition in 
 London came also from an immediate necessity: the neces- 
 sity of saving from annihilation independence of thought in 
 England. The pressure of Censorship tended to deny 
 Englishmen the right to accept continental ideas, or to think 
 freely on moral questions. The art lovers of England learned 
 their lesson from the Theatre Libre, in Paris, and from the 
 Freie Buhne, in Berlin. They read Ibsen, and from him 
 learned, as America did later, the value of the printed play. 
 In their talk they discussed freely the then "new" social 
 propaganda which now seems to be so self-evident that Ibsen, 
 in many ways, has grown old-fashioned. From this condition 
 came the present realistic and literary English drama. 
 
 In like fashion are there forces at work to-day — forces 
 
316 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 governing the theatre, the dramatist, and audiences; forces 
 which point to a rehabilitation of the poetic drama in rela- 
 tion to 'the higher fervor of man. Such dramas are being 
 aided and abetted by scenery which suggests broad sweeps of 
 emotion, instead of aiming at a literal realism competing with 
 the real thing. In other words, the new forces, to-day, are 
 pointing to a spiritual drama. 
 
 America has had no such intellectual training for the art 
 revolt. In the theatre, we have been naively imitative, and 
 even now, in a transition period, we are groping for something 
 which does not appear distinctly to our imaginations. The 
 Little Theatre Movement is in a tumult of experimentation. 
 Its expression is crude and intellectually undisciplined. It 
 has not yet done what a real spirit of revolt in art should do. 
 It courts suspicion because of its touch of dilettantism. In 
 its youthful defiance, it sometimes lets slip the idea of the 
 theatre as a dignified social institution. It has, on the one 
 hand, over-emphasized the importance of the word " Little," 
 making a fetish of the physical playhouse, rather than em- 
 phasizing the spiritual content of the play; and, on the other 
 hand, it has failed to make room in its scheme for the very 
 community about which it is forever speaking. 
 
 As a Director of one of the Little Theatres has written: 
 " While theoretically the aims and ideals and purposes of the 
 Little Theatre are decidedly worth while, unfortunately the 
 whole movement has received something of a black eye, 
 from the fact that the practitioners of this so-called art of 
 the little theatre have been either faddists or people utterly 
 ignorant of the rudiments of production. It seems to me too 
 bad that the word * theatre,' frightfully overworked, should 
 have to bear the burden of so many sins. There was a time 
 when one had a fairly adequate idea of what one would see 
 in a theatre. But, to-day, the word * theatre' has to cover 
 every kind of performance, from a moving-picture to a mono- 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 317 
 
 logue. I wonder what will become of the Little Theatre. 
 I feel certain that unless it does establish some definite con- 
 tact with community life, it is doomed. But, on the other 
 hand, I believe that it is conceivable that the Little Theatre, 
 sanely handled and intellectually directed, might be the seed 
 from which a real community theatre might spring." 
 
 Thus far the Little Theatre Movement has failed to gain 
 the full confidence of the public. If it has not impressed the 
 commercial manager, the excuse might be that the manager is 
 impervious to new ideas. But the Little Theatres have failed 
 to justify themselves, chiefly because they have not earned a 
 living from the community in which they exist; so many of 
 them end each year with a deficit. The commercial manager 
 has been spurred by this new art movement into accepting, 
 occasionally, a play of real literary worth; almost invariably 
 such a play has spelled loss to him. This loss may be at- 
 tributed to the fact that some of the plays presented, like 
 "Rutherford and Sons," "Change" and "Prunella," are 
 "repertory" plays, rather than "long run" plays. But the 
 manager may often rightly claim that his "highbrow" play 
 was not even supported by the small group of "intellectuals" 
 or "esthetes" to whom the Little Theatres are, in a way, 
 pledged to cater, and who are themselves pledged to support 
 the "Movement." 
 
 While it is true that the Little Theatres have been estab% 
 lished with an idea that economically they should not com- 
 pete with the commercial theatre, the very casualness of their 
 existence makes them indifferent to the necessity of being 
 self-supporting; though they aim to satisfy the intellectual 
 part of their clientele, they often hang as a dead-weight around 
 the neck of the community, and, without the consuming desire 
 of justifying their existence, try to satisfy their own limited 
 tastes. 
 
 So far the Little Theatres throughout the country have 
 
31S THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 failed to produce any great playwrights, any original direc- 
 tors; and they have been indifferent to the working out of 
 any set body of ideas. They seem to have gained nothing of 
 permanent constructive value from their experience. But it 
 may be that, from an irresponsible turning of the spade, by 
 the loosening of the rocky elements of commercialism in an 
 untilled dramatic soil yet to be tested for its richness, some 
 good will result. At least, it is better to work, however un- 
 wittingly, against a commercialism in the theatre which is 
 deadening, than to remain satisfied with a theatre dominated 
 by the " Broadway idea." 
 
 It is well to approach the subject of Little Theatres nega- 
 tively, if we would gain a true perspective regarding the 
 positive results of individual examples. It cannot be denied 
 that the groups of people interested in the theatre who have 
 banded themselves into artistic communities are significant 
 in themselves. But, after extended investigation, one must 
 deplore the fact that these groups are reproducing themselves 
 in unthinking rapidity, without fully knowing what is the 
 necessity which creates the Little Theatre Movement in 
 general. These independent art movements represent a 
 protest; wherever a revolt springs up in small communities, 
 its presence measures the discontent of a particular group 
 with the character of the amusement supplied through the 
 regular commercial theatrical channels. If these fast mul- 
 tiplying centres organize themselves in a way to become a 
 menace to the local theatres, then the commercial syndicate 
 will be bound, sooner or later, to realize that in the Little 
 Theatre Movement lies its future undoing. 
 
 It was out of the discontent created by the Theatrical 
 Trust that the first signs of artistic revolt in America took 
 place. The Independent Theatre Company, in the early Nine- 
 ties, gave to New York its first Ibsen performance, because 
 no regular manager would attempt Ibsen. This company 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 319 
 
 was probably imitative of the Stage Society in London, even 
 as the National Art Theatre Society, of 1903, was a reflec- 
 tion in New York of the agitation in London for a National 
 Theatre, started by Henry Arthur Jones. The self-conscious 
 organizing of the New Theatre in New York was symbolical 
 of the wrong way in which artistic revolt in the theatre has 
 been conducted by American reformers. The idea that here- 
 tofore predominated was that money can establish anything, 
 and establish it quickly. We thought that, with the erection 
 of a building dedicated to high art, good drama and good 
 taste would readily flow in. The experiment proved that such 
 was not the case. 
 
 The first Little Theatre in America saw the light in Boston. 
 It was unwisely run on private capital, and soon this pioneer 
 effort was struggling for existence. At this moment, when the 
 Little Theatre Movement is at its height in this country, 
 the Boston playhouse remains dark. Such a failure has not 
 received careful consideration from the other organizing 
 groups. Nowhere has there been a proper analysis of why 
 the Boston Little Theatre failed, or why later on the Phila- 
 delphia Little Theatre failed. Groups are rushing in without 
 giving thought to the pitfalls which have already confronted 
 others; without measuring the intensity with which a com- 
 munity really desires good art. The idea of a Little Theatre 
 is a contagious one, and the epidemic rages. 
 
 The philosophy of the movement seems to be this: that 
 the theatre, being a social institution, the sooner we socialize 
 it the better it will be for the freedom of art. But should not 
 the situation be entirely reversed? The sooner we create 
 Vvdthin people a real love for, and understanding of art, the 
 sooner will the theatre, dominated by the revolutionary 
 group of artists, become socialized through a social demand 
 for it. 
 
 We wonder whether the Washington Square Players, with 
 
320 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 all their community ambitions, and with all their independ- 
 ence, have satisfied their own clientele sufficiently to make 
 a livehhood, or whether they have attracted the pubHc suf- 
 ficiently to give them encouragement for their future per- 
 manence. The Organization has presented plays which are 
 interesting, but their choice of repertory has not been repre- 
 sentative of what theatregoers really want. The|^ are not 
 even organized as a socialized group, but came into being 
 purely as experimenters, dominated by certain esthetic man- 
 nerisms. Such a group of esthetes must inevitably stand 
 outside the real movement of the theatre to-day — outside 
 the real revolt. They have only imitated in spirit a conti- 
 nental idea which has become a fixed idea among amateurs. 
 When the continental idea gets the upper hold of a group of 
 young workers, it is hard to shake it off. 
 
 With the advent of the Little Theatre Movement, there has 
 developed into being the laboratory method in the theatre. 
 It has now become a popular belief that not only is drama 
 an art which under the microscope of college specializa- 
 tion can be reduced to technical terms, but that the theatre 
 is a social institution whose functions may be taught, even 
 as architecture or music. In Pittsburgh, at the School of 
 Technology, this laboratory method is carried out to its 
 fullest extent, with the cooperation of the School of Design 
 and the School of Music. The work of the Department of 
 Dramatic Arts, so it is definitely stated, is planned to give the 
 student a general knowledge of tlie technique of the drama, 
 approaching it by literary and historical courses, as well as 
 through a severe training in practical technical work. Its 
 course in dcama offers an opportunity for the student to 
 study the theatre itself in its several aspects. 
 
 Elsewhere, this laboratory method is being preached to 
 even fuller extent. There are some who go so far as to desire, 
 instead of a school of drama for the novice, a "University" 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 321 
 
 of the theatre, where the professional managers, actors, and 
 scenic artists may, so to speak, take post-graduate courses; 
 may come to this university to " try out" pUiys and formulate 
 principles which later they may bring back to the professional 
 theatre itself. 
 
 The laboratory idea seems to be dominant in the Little 
 Theatre Movement. Instead of the word "laboratory," 
 it were well to substitute the word "experimental." As long 
 as Little Theatres, in this country, persist in the principle of 
 experimentalism, rather than attempt to court the idea of 
 competition with professionalism, they will be beneficial 
 wherever they are established. Their presence indicates 
 there is a large body of people whose interest is waiting to 
 be unified in the cause of art, — a unification different from 
 the organizing of audiences, which is the fundamental idea 
 of the Drama League of America. They need someone to 
 discover for them the real national requirements, and they 
 await some vigorous statement of the true mission of the 
 Little Theatre. 
 
 In the present discussion, such a playhouse as Winthrop 
 Ames's Little Theatre, or Charles Hopkins's Punch and Judy 
 Theatre, in New York, should be ruled out. Not only are 
 both of these classed as commercial houses, but they are also 
 farthest away from the amateur spirit. They are presided 
 over by men who happen to be anxious to do artistic work in 
 a professional manner. There are some Little Theatres dom- 
 inated entirely by the educational idea. They have come 
 into being with a sociological purpose. Such playhouses 
 are those encouraged by Hull House, Chicago, and by the 
 Henry Street Settlement, New York. If you will examine the 
 repertory of the Hull House Players, you will find one that 
 gives them an honorable history, as far as amateur ambition 
 is concerned. While the Hull House Players have attracted 
 to them the intellectual and artistic interests of Chicago, and 
 
322 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 while they have entertained most of the well-known literary 
 visitors who have come to America from abroad, they have 
 never once courted the idea of professionalism. And though 
 they have persisted, for over a decade, it cannot be said that 
 they have in any way influenced the theatrical situation in 
 Chicago. Yet, to their credit let it be recorded that they have 
 given a hearing to many young American playwrights anxious 
 to deal with social questions; and in some respects they have 
 been more loyal to writers, like Galsworthy, than the legiti- 
 mate theatre itself. They have done their work knowingly, 
 and in the highest sense they have trained their amateur ac- 
 tors in a tradition which undoubtedly reacts on their taste 
 to its betterment. 
 
 We have heard much about the educational idea in the 
 theatre, about educational dramatics and the educational 
 theatre for children, as discussed by Mrs. Minnie Herts 
 Heniger and Mrs. Emma Sheridan Fry. But while the dra- 
 matic instinct is a valuable educational adjunct, used in 
 schools and social centres to excellent advantage, the tendency 
 is to overdo it, to sentimentalize the work with the idea 
 that self-expression on the part of children is better than self- 
 observation of a thing artistically done by professionals in 
 the professional theatre. 
 
 I can see no value in the educational idea as applied to the 
 theatre, except in so far as it will tend to help create in the 
 multitude a sincere taste for drama which will later increase 
 the intelligence of the theatre-going public. That is why it 
 was wise to keep distinct from each other the social work 
 of the Henry Street Settlement and the artistic work of its 
 dramatic department — a distinction which resulted in the 
 establishment of the Neighborhood Playhouse under the 
 guidance of two such ambitious and generous Directors as 
 the Misses Lewisohn. 
 
 With all the newspaper heralding of the Washington Square 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 323 
 
 Players, with all the efforts of the Toy Theatre, in Boston, 
 and the Little Theatre, in Philadelphia, and even with the 
 undeniable art shown in Winthrop Ames's Little Theatre, 
 it took the quiet, unassuming little theatre on Grand Street, 
 New York, to make the reputation of a dramatist and to 
 bring him into popular vogue. The Neighborhood Playhouse, 
 through its presentation of Dunsany's " A Night at an Inn," 
 and its later performances given in most adequate manner 
 of "The Queen's Enemies" and "The Ghttering Gate," 
 helped to establish the work of Lord Dunsany in the minds 
 of the American public. 
 
 To the credit of the Misses Lewisohn, two things are worthy 
 of note — that they have actually encouraged and popu- 
 larized a real and new pla\'wright, a feat accomplished by no 
 other Little Theatre; and that, in a city over-ridden by 
 the "Broadway idea," they have forced an interested public 
 to go all the way down to Grand Street, in order to witness 
 performances which would have gone on, v/ere the up-town 
 public present or absent. Another excellent point in favor 
 of the Neighborhood Playhouse is that, in accord with the 
 laboratory method, which has been put into practice by 
 Professor Baker, at Harvard, Mr. Sam Hume, in Detroit, 
 and others elsewhere, it has manufactured its own costumes 
 and scenery, done in the new manner of decoration and 
 design, and in line with the most advanced methods of 
 stagecraft. In addition to which, they have been enabled to 
 offer to their community worthwhile drama that could be 
 sold at the nominal charge of twenty-five and fifty cents. 
 The Misses Lewisohn have lived up to their original inten- 
 tion, stated in very definite terms in their initial prospectus. 
 Therein it was claimed that the Neighborhood Playhouse 
 hoped to be a community theatre, where the traditions of 
 the neighborhood could find artistic expression, where anyone 
 with special gifts could contribute his talents, and where 
 
324 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 interesting productions of serious plays and comedies, as 
 well as of the lighter forms of entertainment, could be found. 
 By the variety of its programmes, the Playhouse aims to 
 appeal to a public of diverse tastes, interests, and ages, and 
 in this way to share in the life of the community. 
 
 Another independent theatre idea was nurtured and fos- 
 tered by a settlement group. When Stuart Walker first 
 conceived his Portmanteau Theatre, he gave his initial dress- 
 rehearsal at Christadora House, in New York. It was then 
 his idea to present plays with the best actors available, and 
 with the best scenery and costumes, for the entertainment of 
 the people of the Settlement; after which the Portmanteau 
 Theatre, in order to be self-supporting, would act profes- 
 sionally in homes, schools, and clubs. Then Mr. W^alker 
 began to branch out, until now we fear that, however original 
 his idea of a portable, folding theatre, which can be carried 
 to all points of the compass, and however much we have 
 enjoyed the presentation of such pieces as "Gammer Gur- 
 ton's Needle" and Lord Dunsany's "King Argimenes," a 
 tendency is to be seen on his part to lose perspective of the 
 pioneer character of his work. Because of cordial public 
 recognition, he shows an inclination to branch out into the 
 competitive field of the theatre, and seems anxious to shake 
 from his shoulders the perfectly legitimate and commendable 
 role of amateur. Mr. W^alker would be helping the artistic 
 revolt were he to rest content to remain a pioneer, inculcating 
 in people a taste for the better type of drama, presented in 
 an artistic and inexpensive way. His Little Theatre proves 
 most conclusively the practicality of the points brought for- 
 ward by Professor Dickinson in his book, " The Case of Amer- 
 ican Drama," and summed up in the belief that what 
 American dramatic art is suffering from to-day is the dis- 
 tortion of values in the theatre. 
 
 Mr. Walker's productions do not depend upon real estate. 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 325 
 
 His whole artistic contribution consists in the use of para- 
 phernalia which allows him to set his stage in a school-room 
 or bring his stage to a parlor. The Portmanteau Theatre does 
 not, in fact, depend on any land values whatsoever. It has 
 the ambulatory character of the "circuit rider," who needed 
 no church in which to preach, his pulpit being the pommel 
 of a saddle. The sooner the theatre, economically, makes it 
 possible for productions to be brought to the people, rather 
 than for the people to be brought, through extensive adver- 
 tising and expensive costuming, to the theatre, the sooner 
 will the socializing of the theatre take place. Other centres, 
 upholding the workshop idea, have already put into effect 
 a similar travelling company with a portable stage modelled 
 after the manner of Stuart Walker's. It would not surprise 
 us to find later on this example greeted eagerly by isolated 
 communities in the rural districts, where stage accessories 
 are difficult to procure. Did not the English Miracle Plays 
 and the French My stores develop the pageant wagon? 
 
 Nearly all the large cities in the United States at the pres- 
 ent time have Little Theatres, or are about to establish them. 
 We find them in Indianapolis, in Detroit, in Milwaukee, in 
 St. Louis, in Kansas City, in the University of North Dakota, 
 in the Agricultural College of Fargo, and from there straight 
 on to the Pacific coast. They are all trying to work along 
 the same lines. In fact, many of them have the same reper- 
 tories. Whether the Little Playhouse Company of Cincin- 
 nati, or the Players Workshop of Chicago, or the Players 
 Club of San Francisco; whether the Lake Forest Players, 
 or the Drama League Players of W^ashington, — they are all 
 striving to present the unusual and to do the uncommercial 
 thing. 
 
 It is interesting to note, by the repetition of plays from 
 town to town, what dramas have been found peculiarly 
 adapted to the demands of the Little Theatre; how cordial 
 
326 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Little Theatre audiences have been to the one-act play, not 
 only because it represents less outlay in the matter of pro- 
 duction, but because there is something peculiarly fitting that 
 a little play should be given in a Little Theatre. 
 
 The one-act play is the vogue to-day — not alone in vaude- 
 ville, where only twenty minutes may be the longest time 
 devoted to a "turn"; not only in the legitimate theatre, 
 where it is used on rare occasions; but in the experimental 
 theatre, where the playwrights are usually given experience 
 in rehearsing, which they sorely need and which the legitimate 
 theatre will not, under present conditions, afford them. The 
 consequence is, George Middleton and Percival Wilde and 
 Oliphant Down, and many others of the younger American 
 playwrights, whose dramas, though published, have not been 
 given to the public in the legitimate theatre, have found the 
 requisite haven in the community playhouses. 
 
 So recognized is it that the one-act form is best suited for 
 the Little Theatre movement, that all the important attempts 
 of the Washington Square Players have been one-act; the 
 Provincetown Players have written nothing but one-act 
 plays; Professor Dickinson's group of writers in Wisconsin 
 turned to the one-act form. And the University of North 
 Dakota has offered courses in the technique of the one-act 
 play, the Bankside Theatre and the Sock and Buskin Society 
 of that institution producing the plays written in class. 
 
 This aptness for the one-act play in the Little Theatre does 
 not necessarily mean that a full-grown play cannot be done 
 in a small place. Mr. Ames has shown how well it can be 
 done in a professional way. But, as soon as a full play is 
 given, it demands, if it be a play of any acting possibility, of 
 any literary value and spiritual content, a consistent note of 
 presentation which the amateurs — who generally are the 
 actors in the Little Theatres — cannot sustain or even hope 
 to approach. 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 327 
 
 It may be taken as one of the positive results of the Little 
 Theatre Movement, that it is doing more than the professional 
 theatre to encourage the unknown playwright. It is training 
 for legitimate stage work a group of enthusiasts who in the 
 future will do much to revolutionize the professional stage. 
 As the number of theatres increases, so will the range of in- 
 fluence increase likewise. What is now lost, in a well-stated 
 object, is counterbalanced by a gain in effect on the immediate 
 communities. The Little Theatres are striving for something, 
 as yet unstated, but which is definitely opposed to the com- 
 mercial idea. 
 
 At Hull House, in Chicago, "Justice," "The Pigeon," 
 "The Silver Box," "The Tragedy of Nan," and countless 
 other plays which are representative of the best in modern 
 English drama have been given. But the workers there have 
 never thought, so we have been led to believe, that as an 
 amateur organization they could ever compete with the pro- 
 fessional, however near they might reach a professional 
 standard. What we should understand is this: recognition 
 on the part of the public that these Little Theatres are the 
 real centres of art, rather than centres of experimentation, 
 will tend to lower the standard of the professional stage, 
 and, certainly, the stage is low enough at the present time, 
 both in acting and in details of execution! If the amateurs 
 throughout the country are to become professional, then they 
 must cease being amateurs. In these Little Theatres, the 
 only one who need not be an amateur is the playwright. His 
 standard may be high, and should be high; a rigorous de- 
 mand for the best drama on the part even of the amateur 
 actor should do much to raise the standard of the American 
 dramatist's art. 
 
 Sometimes these Little Theatres assume, through the genius 
 of an individual worker, the proportions and importance of 
 the professional theatre; though the productions are given 
 
328 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 with the assistance of amateurs, the dominant personaHty of 
 the Director persists. However commendable, in some re- 
 spects, the efforts of the Washington Square Players may be, 
 they have not approached the art of the theatre with that 
 humihty which would make them realize that, if they are to 
 compete with Broadway, as their geographical position in 
 New York City would lead one to think they were trying to 
 do, their one hope for salvation would be to place themselves 
 in the hands of a competent stage-director. 
 
 The work of Sam Hume, a graduate of Harvard, has been 
 in the new stage art. We have seen his stage models shaped 
 in accord with theories learned from Gordon Craig and Stan- 
 islavsky. It is encouraging to note that the young Amer- 
 ican decorator, who is in the new movement, is more balanced 
 in the use of the theories of line and mass, of pure design and 
 mood, than the continental artist. Robert Edmond Jones, 
 who watched the work of Reinhardt, in Berlin, and who 
 studied abroad, has a natural gift for inventiveness with 
 color; he is another excellent example of the hope for the 
 future. Both Hume and Jones are doing creative work, and 
 their effect has been seen in many productions for the Little 
 Theatres. Both men have experimented with line, have shown 
 practically to the practical theatrical manager how the new 
 art may be time-saving as well as money-saving, may be 
 within taste and likewise fulfil all the demands of an over- 
 pampered taste which the commercial theatre has catered to 
 for so many years. Hume has written sanely on the new 
 scenic theories as propounded by the foreign experimenters, 
 and he has proceeded to put into practice, just as Jones has 
 put into practice for the professional manager, what he has 
 learned. 
 
 Hume has been experimenting with Little Theatres, serv- 
 ing as the head of the Arts and Crafts Theatre in Detroit. 
 He is the one Director of a Little Theatre who has, thus far, 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 329 
 
 considered the indisputable fact of supply and demand. 
 It was a fact recognized by the London Stage Society, when 
 that body decided, during its existence, to give only two even- 
 ing performances and one matinee of each production, open 
 to members only, who did not buy their seats, but who sub- 
 scribed for membership to the Society, thus evading the 
 Censor, and permitting them to give performances on Sun- 
 day. The Provincetown Players have followed the external 
 idea of the Stage Society. It was left for Mr. Hume, in De- 
 troit, to adopt the spirit. "Our season here," he writes, 
 "is assured by subscription. We make one production a 
 month, and give three performances — all there is a demand 
 for at present. We beheved it wiser to start with the de- 
 mand, and let our organization and number of performances 
 expand as the demand increases, rather than to begin with 
 an imagined demand which would leave us at the end of the 
 season with a debt." 
 
 This is surely a wise approach, a wise experimenting with 
 public taste; it reduces to a minimum the risk which has 
 made the commercial manager accept plays with his eye 
 fixed on box-office receipts. It also allows the Director, in 
 this particular case Mr. Hume, to put into practice his 
 artistic ambitions. At various times, subscribers to the 
 Arts and Crafts Theatre, in Detroit, have been given pro- 
 ductions of the Chester Miracle drama, "Abraham and 
 Isaac," and Laurence Housman's "The Chinese Lantern." 
 They have borrowed plays from the Wisconsin repertory, 
 from the Washington Square Players, from the Provincetown 
 Players, and have drawn likewise from the dramas of the 
 Glasgow Repertory Theatre. With them, as with the Wash- 
 ington Square Players, Maeterlinck has offered large possi- 
 bihties, and with them, as with the Neighborhood Play- 
 house and the Portmanteau Theatre, Dunsany is in great 
 demand. 
 
330 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 These Little Theatres throughout the country are eagerly 
 watching the work being done by other related organizations, 
 and are anxious to exchange tried successes. This interplay 
 of ideas and productions points the way to the possibility of 
 a chain of Little Theatres being established some day, as 
 soon as they are individually well-founded in the community 
 — thus assuring them a local permanence — and forming a 
 circuit for the closer union of their efforts. This circuit would 
 result in a more effective campaign against- the commercial 
 circuit now bringing to isolated communities the poorest 
 pieces of a past New York theatrical season. Already we 
 find that the Wisconsin Players have \dsited Chicago and 
 Pittsburgh; that the Washington Square Players have had a 
 second company on the road; that the Portmanteau Theatre 
 has travelled to the coast, and gained for itself a recognition 
 which is worthy. 
 
 Mr. Hume, in Detroit, has done another estimable thing, 
 and in doing so he has declared his good intention of reaching 
 the full value of the community idea. " I do not look upon 
 the Little Theatre as a laboratory," he writes, "where a few 
 people work out their own personal and usually very queer 
 and highly speciaKzed ideas; but a theatre which, to justify 
 its existence, must establish some definite point of contact 
 with community life." 
 
 Immediately on assuming control of the Arts and Crafts 
 Theatre, he offered a prize of one hundred dollars for a play 
 written by a Michigan man, being careful also in his first bill 
 to present a piece by a native dramatist of Detroit. This 
 offering of prizes, either in the form of money, or in the form 
 of an assured production, has become quite common among 
 the Little Theatres. In Boston, for a number of years, John 
 Craig, of the Castle Square Theatre, has cooperated with 
 Professor Baker, of Harvard, and has given adequate pro- 
 ductions of the prize plays coming from "Workshop 47." 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 331 
 
 In this way, Fred Ballard, author of " Believe Me, Xantippe!" 
 and "Young America," obtained his first hearing. When we 
 discover small communities ambitious enough to offer the 
 same incentive, in order to discover talents ^ear at hand, 
 we mark an encouraging possibility in the Little Theatre 
 Movement. 
 
 The Prairie Playhouse, of Galesburg, Illinois, owned and 
 directed by private individuals within the community, was 
 established for the special purpose of awakening and develop- 
 ing the rich dramatic field which lies as yet untouched in the 
 upper Mississippi Valley. A prize was offered for the best 
 one-act play which "the Prairie Playhouse will produce 
 carefully and artistically; will pay the author ten dollars per 
 night every night of production (three nights guaranteed); 
 will reserve no rights over . . . after production; and will 
 use its influence to get . . . before a larger pubHc." We can 
 imagine Galesburg closing its shops in order to finish manu- 
 scripts in time! The positive effect of such activity is to 
 open many new possibilities to the American dramatist, the 
 same possibilities as were recognized by Professor Dicldnson, 
 Zona Gale, and William Ellery Leonard in their writing for 
 the Wisconsin Dramatic Society. 
 
 At the University of North Dakota, under the guidance of 
 Professor Frederick H. Koch, the students have produced 
 such an ambitious reflection of community tradition as " The 
 Pageant of the Northwest," given at the natural Bankside 
 Theatre of the University, May 28, 1914. This piece has 
 brought into practice a curious and interesting experiment 
 on the part of Professor Koch, who believes not only in a 
 community theatre, but in community playwriting as well. 
 His idea is that, in a class of eighteen or twenty, under the 
 guidance of an Instructor, an artistic work can be constructed 
 by suggestions received from all the members of the group 
 working together. Not only was the " Pageant of the North- 
 
332 THE AMERICAN DRAINIATIST 
 
 west" written in collaboration, but during the Shakespeare 
 Tercentenary season, an ambitious piece, entitled "Shake- 
 speare, the Playmaker," was effectively carried through by 
 Professor Koch, who had under his inspiration twenty student 
 dramatists. Following that work, the course in one-act play- 
 writing was offered students, many of the pieces forth- 
 coming reflecting the life of North Dakota. For example, 
 one young dramatist wrote a play, called " Wanted a Farmer," 
 which was suggested by a visit of the North Dakota Bachelor 
 Farmers to the Chicago Live Stock Show. Certainly, as 
 local atmosphere, such a play is keeping very close to the 
 soil! 
 
 One beneficial result coming from the establishment of 
 Little Playhouses in isolated communities is this: that even 
 though they may not have the power of materially affecting 
 the present theatrical situation, they may have the immediate 
 power of shedding light in a community where light is sorely 
 needed. 
 
 On the prairies of North Dakota, at Fargo, where the Agri- 
 cultural College is situated, the Little Country Theatre has 
 done much to stimulate the latent imagination of a very 
 mixed population — a population where seventy-two per 
 cent, of the people are either foreign born or are of foreign 
 descent. The object of the Little Country Theatre, its Di- 
 rector says, is to produce such plays and exercises as can be 
 easily staged in a country school, in the basement of a coun- 
 try church, in the sitting-room of a home, in the village or 
 town hall, or in any place where people assemble for social 
 betterment. 
 
 From this we can see that the educational side is para- 
 mount in some of these Little Theatres, and that the artistic 
 interest must necessarily be limited by the rural character of 
 the audience. The community must be taken into considera- 
 tion in the selection of a repertory. That is why it is unwise 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 333 
 
 for a Director to think Schnitzler's " Anatole" is suited to the 
 tastes of the arid plains of Arizona! It is a principle which 
 the commercial manager may say he has himself tried to 
 follow — a principle which he sums up in the belief that he 
 is giving the public what it wants. The question v/hich nat- 
 urally comes to us is whether the manager is capable of 
 judging what the public wants, whether he has sufficient 
 evidence of the trend of popular taste. The argument of 
 many reformers in revolt against the commercial manager 
 is that, on the one hand, he shows no artistic ambition, and, 
 on the other hand, he does not rightly measure what all the 
 public wants. He caters to the lov/est standard of taste. 
 
 When Bertram Harrison assumed control of the Municipal 
 Theatre in Northampton, Massachusetts, he was confronted 
 with an interesting problem. The manager of any playhouse, 
 which appeals to two very widely differing sets of people, 
 indeed has a problem. The University, represented by Smith 
 College, and the working classes, represented by the mill- 
 town population, were the ones for whom Mr. Harrison had 
 to cater. He was pledged to adopt a policy which would re- 
 sult in the selection of plays according to a mean between 
 these two extremes, every now and then attempting what the 
 Little Theatre people might designate as " the artistic thing." 
 His repertories have included plays which usually find their 
 way into the stock regime. The consequence is, the North- 
 ampton Players are, more or less, a stock company subject 
 to municipal regulations. They depend, because of the special 
 demands of the audiences, not so much on original productions 
 as on productions leased from the legitimate commercial 
 theatre because of their popular and their successful character. 
 Therefore, Mr. Harrison's problem is different from the Little 
 Theatre problem. It is at the same time both experimental 
 and professional. 
 
 The establishment of a Little Theatre does not guarantee 
 
334 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 that those who are in charge really know all that they should 
 know about the theatre. The danger lies in the fact that a 
 group of amateurs are experimenting with a valuable set of 
 artistic tools. There are so many people who have a dis- 
 gruntled attitude toward the theatre, and who assume that 
 this attitude gives them a privileged knowledge regarding 
 what the theatre really needs for its improvement. Particu- 
 larly is there danger coming from University channels, where 
 the authorities are now taking active interest in the dramatic 
 enthusiasm shown among the student bodies. For some 
 years, Dartmouth College, under the very striking direction 
 of the students, not only gave worthy performances, which 
 drove out the regular college musical inanity, but produced 
 so w^ell that the people of Hanover, New Hampshire, expressed 
 a willingness to support these productions during the season. 
 The Dartmouth Dramatic Society became the artistic centre 
 of community life. 
 
 At Oberlin, Ohio, under Professor Philip D. Sherman, the 
 work done by the College Dramatic Association has assumed 
 such significant proportions that their store-room is suffi- 
 ciently rich in stage properties and in costumes for them to 
 be able to present, at any time, a most commendable reper- 
 tory of plays. "Two years ago," said Professor Sherman, 
 writing in October, 1916, "we brought scene-painters to 
 Oberlin. ... In addition to staging plays, the Association 
 brings before the students such companies as Stuart Walker's 
 Portmanteau Theatre, the Coburn Players, and the Chicago 
 Little Theatre Company." 
 
 In other words, the University student is now being grad- 
 uated with an idea that the drama is something to be acted, 
 something to be mounted artistically, rather than something 
 to be studied in such small structural detail that the spirit 
 of the drama and the vitality of the playhouse are lost to 
 view. 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 335 
 
 But the University has to be careful in the part which it 
 desires to play in the theatre revolt. It must realize that all 
 this awakened interest in the drama did not come, originally, 
 from the University, but from outside; that, until the stu- 
 dents, through a wide-spread interest in the reading of plays, 
 and through a revival of interest in the mechanical details of 
 the theatre itself, clamored for courses in the drama, the 
 University persisted in pointing to Restoration Drama as 
 modern drama, and refused in the class-room to be more con- 
 temporary than Sheridan. 
 
 The reason why Professor Sherman is meeting with effec- 
 tive results at Oberlin is that he is approaching the theatre, 
 as Professor Koch is approaching it in North Dakota, not 
 as one connected with a university, but as one connected with 
 the theatre itself. The revolutionists, in their zeal, sometimes 
 forget the theatre! 
 
 The Little Theatre groups naturally turn to Professor 
 George Pierce Baker, of Harvard, as the original source of 
 their inspiration. What he has done in a practical way for 
 the playhouse, what has emanated from his "Workshop 
 47," has grown into something more than experiment. It 
 has resulted in a practical illustration of the theory that 
 dramatists, who were once born, can now, to a certain extent, 
 be made. The general belief is that the University should 
 leave its impress upon a body of dramaturgy. But it is our 
 conviction that this is true only in so far as a body of doc- 
 trine, emanating from a university, might educate a people, 
 arousing their appreciation for better things. Of course, if 
 the University could send forth dramatists filled with a seri- 
 ous determination — men and women trained to the best 
 technique, prompted by the best tradition — then so much 
 the better for the stage. But where the University has yet 
 to show its influence is in the very important matter of awak- 
 ening the student body to ideas for the theatre, without which 
 
336 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 even the best technique is a mere husk. It is not the matter 
 of technique that makes the dramatist, but the matter of 
 dramatic instinct. One must be born with that. 
 
 "Workshop 47" has turned out dramatists with an under- 
 standing of stage technique, just as Columbia University 
 has turned out a group of dramatists under the guidance of 
 Professor Brander Matthews. This University interest has 
 resulted, apart from the splendid pioneer work done by the 
 Harvard Dramatic Association and the Yale Dramatic 
 Association, in a determination on the part of the Universities 
 to have their own community theatre. Already has this de- 
 sire become an established fact in many of our University 
 centres. But these playhouses should not be grouped in the 
 Little Theatre Movement; being under University patronage, 
 they will assuredly appeal to the University community, and 
 will be prompted in selection of repertories by academic 
 standards. It may be that some day Harvard, Yale, and 
 Columbia will have their playhouses. Already have Yale, 
 Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania 
 given creditable performances. But, at the present experi- 
 mental stage, it is unwise for a university to throw the gaunt- 
 let down and challenge the commercial theatre by actual 
 production. The Dramatic Department of Columbia Uni- 
 versity may, through outside effort, bring to Hght, as John 
 Craig, in affiHation with Harvard, has brought to light, many 
 new dramatists. But it would be wrong to argue that had 
 there been no "Workshop 47" and no Professor Baker, there 
 would have been no Edward Sheldon, no Josephine Preston 
 Peabody, no Percy Mackaye; and had there been no Pro- 
 fessor Matthews, there would have been no William DeMille. 
 There is no doubt, nevertheless, that because of the different 
 drama courses given in the Colleges, the undergraduate soil 
 has been prepared for many latent writers to flourish into 
 being. Except for awakening interest in the future welfare 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 337 
 
 of the theatre, the University experiments cannot have 
 any appreciable effect at the present time on the dramatic 
 situation. 
 
 The Little Theatre Movement, in fine, must be regarded as 
 a measure of restlessness, not entirely as pointing the way out 
 of our theatrical difficulties. There is no reason to believe 
 that the Little Theatre is going to be the salvation of dramatic 
 art in the future. There is every reason to believe that the 
 Little Theatre is doing excellent pioneer work in educating 
 the public to a realization that the commercial theatre is 
 letting slip untold possibilities. There is a tendency on the 
 part of managers to keep their eyes on Professor Baker's 
 yearly output, to follow closely the response given by com- 
 munities to particular productions made by the experi- 
 mental playhouses. For example, there is an interest shown 
 on the part of the managers in securing some of the Dunsany 
 plays which they once overlooked, but which are now brought 
 to success in the Little Theatres, and are found to be of vital 
 interest to the theatre-going public. The Little Theatre, 
 likewise, has shown the manager the advisability of trying 
 out plays before investing commercially in heavy productions. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the Little Theatres have in many 
 instances challenged the professional theatre. This has un- 
 wittingly won for the movement the antagonism of profes- 
 sional people. This antagonism has been increased by the 
 self-assertiveness of such artistic centres as the Washington 
 Square Players, who, no matter how extensive the criticism, 
 or how wise, cannot be made to realize that they are bad 
 actors, and are in need of a good director. David Belasco 
 very rightly scored the Little Theatres on account of their 
 inexperience, their defiance of the best dramatic traditions. 
 "While I believe in amateur acting organizations," he said, 
 "and want them to exist and receive every encouragement, 
 it is unwise so to praise their efforts as to turn their heads 
 
338 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 completely, until these play-acting actors really think they 
 can act." 
 
 Mr. Belasco spoke a propos of the indiscriminate praise 
 bestowed in certain quarters on the Washington Square 
 Players. It came at a time when this organization, none too 
 secure in its dramatic abilities, announced its intention of 
 opening a school of acting. The irony of this announcement, 
 in view of their past efforts, was not seen by them, inasmuch 
 as, true to their class, they have no sense of humor regarding 
 their work. 
 
 The Washington Square Players are not singled out for 
 any personal reason. One cannot help but appreciate the 
 good work they have done. They simply stand as a warning 
 because they have, thus far, more than any other amateur 
 art group, come nearer the challenge of Broadway, and they 
 have in consequence had drawn down upon them more of 
 the limelight of publicity. No Little Theatre should com- 
 pete with professionalism, but through high endeavor should 
 strive to point the way toward a rehabilitation of the pro- 
 fessional theatre of the future. 
 
 The immediate problem of the Little Theatres throughout 
 the country seems to be this: to make themselves so neces- 
 sary to the community and to the country at large, as experi- 
 mental playhouses, as the home of the repertory idea, that, 
 due to their sincerity of purpose, they will win the confidence 
 of the professional managers, who will watch them and the 
 response given to them by the communities in which they 
 exist, and will gain from this careful watchfulness an experi- 
 ence which will gradually awaken them to the fact that their 
 box-office standard is wrong — although not so entirely 
 wrong as the reformers seem to think. 
 
 That the unproduced American dramatists will look to the 
 Little Theatres for encouragement is a foregone conclusion. 
 That they should receive from the Little Theatres that en- 
 
CRAZE FOR LITTLE THEATRES 339 
 
 couragement for which they are looking, is a natural conse- 
 quence. But the Little Theatres cannot expect, once they 
 have discovered the possibilities in a young playwright, to 
 be able to hold that playwright to the narrow economic 
 field in which they are working. The very experimental 
 character of their work would indicate that they could never 
 be regularly taken into the commercial field on a standard of 
 amateurish. Their very experimental character, likewise, 
 shows that, whatever their positive results, their most effi- 
 cient influence will be in accustoming audiences to a better 
 type of play and in allowing the unproduced playwright to 
 externalize that which the manager will not risk. 
 
 The Little Theatres may, on the one hand, hope to de- 
 velop new dramatists. On the other hand, they may, at the 
 present moment, consider themselves as guardians of the rep- 
 ertory idea, until the professional theatre sees that the rep- 
 ertory idea, with an established stock company, is one of 
 the wise hopes of the future. It may be that when that time 
 arrives, the Little Theatres will become so well established 
 in the confidence of the community that their pioneer work 
 will be done, and they will themselves become centres of a 
 larger movement which takes on the character of profession- 
 alism. In other words, having effected a social and economic 
 change in the theatre, having brought to light new play- 
 wrights, and experimented successfully with old ones, they 
 may then, after having passed through the fires of experi- 
 mentation, become not only a force but a factor in the real 
 theatrical development.^ 
 
 * A book on the subject of "Little Theatres" has been written 
 by Constance D'Arcy Mackay (Henry Holt & Co.)- For interest- 
 ing material regarding the spirit of Little Theatres, the reader is 
 referred to a suggestive pamphlet written by Maurice Brown, en- 
 titled " The Temple of Living Art." 
 
 Professor Frederick H. Koch has issued a pamphlet entitled "The 
 Amateur Theatre in the University," and another entitled "Amateur 
 
340 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Values in Pageantry." His experiment in community playwriting 
 may be studied through the published Masque, "Shakespeare, the 
 Playmaker," and "A Pageant of the North-West," both issued 
 under the auspices of the University of North Dakota. Alfred Ar- 
 vold has written a pamphlet on "The Little Country Theatre," and 
 also has published an address bearing on the subject, dealing with 
 "Dynamic Social Forces." Much material may be had on the sub- 
 ject of Little Theatres and the modern movement by consulting 
 the files of the Play-Book, published by the Wisconsin Dramatic 
 Society for a short while under the editorship of Thomas H. Dickin- 
 son; by consulting the "Dramatic Index" for the past years under 
 the general entry of "Little Theatres" and under specific names, as 
 The Portmanteau Theatre, The Neighborhood Playhouse, The 
 Washington Square Players, and so on. A suggestive pamphlet cover- 
 ing the Little Theatre activities is the 1916 Convention Number 
 of the Drama League Monthly. 
 
 The subject of the Portmanteau Theatre has been treated by 
 Edward Hale Bierstadt in the preface to a volume of "Portman- 
 teau Plays," published by Stewart & Kidd. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE NEED FOR A DRAMATIC LIBRARY 
 
 There have been many movements on foot to establish a 
 dramatic Hbrary in New York and elsewhere — some full 
 collection of books to satisfy the intellectual and technical 
 demands of the theatrical profession. All social movements 
 betoken a social need, and in the present extensive library 
 development, no one has bethought himself to make a plea 
 for this particular branch of art and literature. Yet the 
 need is there, and the opportunity is still awaiting some one 
 to make the idea of a dramatic library a fact. 
 
 In isolated moments, when one is vainly searching for 
 particular books on costumes, for a special text of a play 
 such as "Dora," for some biographical material concerning 
 a bygone " star," — when one is looking for such data, then 
 it is that, as a vain search is made here, there, and every- 
 where, wasting time and energy the while, there is a faint 
 yearning for some special library where comfort, accuracy, 
 and completeness are housed beneath one roof. 
 
 No one will deny that in the theatrical profession there 
 may be found the specialist's pride; and the specialist in 
 drama realizes more and more the necessity for preserving 
 records, for so systematizing the best that has been thought 
 and written in all departments of the theatre, as to give 
 the worker immediate authority in whatever investigation 
 of a professional character he has occasion to undertake. 
 
 Perhaps the ones who have suffered most in this lack of a 
 
342 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 dramatic library have been those continuously engaged 
 in researches connected with stage history. Undoubtedly, 
 those who have indirectly missed quite as much have been 
 the people whose attitude towards the theatre is a practical 
 one, — the producing manager and his staff, usually com- 
 prising an art director, a stage director, and assistants. But 
 the ones in the end to be most vitally hurt by this particular 
 neglect will be those who are to inherit the traditions of 
 theatrical history, traditions which are the common heritage 
 of the nation in which they are practiced or formed, even 
 though they might not, in their general character, pertain to 
 distinct nationality. 
 
 In a narrow, local sense, there are two evident reasons 
 why, at present, the time is opportune for urgent cooperation 
 in this matter of a dramatic library — a cooperation among 
 those most interested in and most intimately responsible 
 for the drama's welfare. 
 
 First, we must realize that, even though our own history 
 of the stage is scarcely more than a century old, our touch 
 with the past is becoming slighter, since the veteran actors — 
 the generations that knew Booth and Forrest and Wallack 
 and Davenport — are passing away month by month. 
 Second, it is most encouraging to note that, with the general 
 interest being manifested by the public in the stage, as a 
 world of glitter and romance, there is taking place a cor- 
 responding increase in the knowledge of those who go to 
 the theatre, and who concern themselves with the growth 
 and history of the drama itself. 
 
 Behind every urgent need there are to be found the social 
 reasons for that need — the facts, for instance, that have 
 made some of us aware of the necessity for a definite library, 
 dealing adequately with the drama, whatever its phase. 
 There are tremendous gaps in the chain of dramatic history 
 to be supplied with connecting links — and every death, 
 
THE NEED FOR A DRAMATIC LIBRARY 343 
 
 every auction sale, every isolated bequeathment, makes it 
 more difficult finally for the connection to be consummated, 
 once the proper endowment is secured for the cause. 
 
 In libraries of a general character, there may be many 
 books concerning the drama, but they are of miscellaneous 
 importance, and are usually selected to satisfy the demands 
 of the general reader. It is not indifference which causes 
 this condition, but the peculiar function of the special circu- 
 lating library which governs the selection. Even a uni- 
 versity library cannot discriminate in its courses, as they 
 relate to the supply of reference books, and no one should 
 grant that it has the right to do so. Therefore, the uni- 
 versity does not attempt to keep pace with any other than 
 an academic interest in the literature of the drama. Much 
 of this current material appears too trivial, indeed, is in- 
 tended as nothing more than passing comment, and therefore 
 is not worthy of preservation. 
 
 Still, this general attention is not what we are at present 
 concerned with. We are seeking to found some centre, to 
 suggest some means of appropriation, whereby a dramatic 
 library, individualized and functionating alone and apart 
 from any general Public Library, yet open to the public, 
 may be placed in a position to become the treasure-house for 
 all written or printed matters pertaining to the theatre in 
 its many and varied aspects. 
 
 Such an institution must not be of trivial or of uncertain 
 foundation; there must be a strong promise of perpetuity 
 in it before donors will entrust their rarities to its keeping. 
 The late Bronson Howard had this thought in mind when, 
 after bequeathing his working library to the Dramatists 
 Club, of which he was the founder, he added the proviso that 
 should the Club, through any unforeseen circumstances, 
 cease to exist, the collection — always to be individualized 
 as "The Bronson Howard Collection for American Dram- 
 
344 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 atists" — should be transferred to the Library of Columbia 
 University, which should likewise be entitled to the interest 
 on five thousand dollars for its further increase. Thus was 
 it that Bronson Howard, in another way, added to his 
 deserved title of "Dean of the American Drama." 
 
 Now, there is only one unfortunate circumstance attached 
 to this gift; the club enriched thereby is a private organi- 
 zation, and while, through special privilege, it might be con- 
 sulted, there is certain restraint upon its wide usage by 
 the public. In the same manner. The Players is loath to 
 make its collection accessible in a general way, and only 
 by card from a member may one enjoy the privilege of a 
 library of books marked more by their associative value 
 than by the wise standard of their choice. 
 
 Rare books concerning the theatre are being indiscrim- 
 inately sold. To the research worker it seems penny wise 
 and pound foolish to wait for the day when some one might 
 endow a dramatic library. Every collection gathered by 
 a fastidious manager or by an intelligent actor, which is 
 placed under the auctioneer's hammer, loosens our hold upon 
 volumes of intrinsic value. I speak from actual experience; 
 I have seen the gaps, and sensed the consequent necessities. 
 And there is no reason why the dramatic profession itself 
 should not establish such a foundation fund, and through 
 its own initiative see the venture become a permanent fact. 
 
 Collections must be preserved intact, and not share the 
 fate of Augustin Daly's books that were scattered to isolated 
 bibliophiles and idle curio hunters. By rights, such a library 
 should have been saved and perpetuated under the original 
 owner's name. It was out of the question for the New 
 York Public Library to become the purchaser, for appropri- 
 ations would not have allowed such "extravagance." Any 
 way, however adequate the New York Public Library, the 
 Astor, Lenox, and Tilden collections combined, may be in 
 
THE NEED FOR A DRAMATIC LIBRARY 345 
 
 drama, I do not care to see a dramatic library lost amidst 
 other collections, and shut off directly from the stream of 
 life which should give it greatest energy. 
 
 New York's Public Library, even in its present state of 
 dramatic incompleteness, does not quite realize the riches it 
 already has, such richness as the Beck collection of plays, nor is 
 there an expert — and by that I do not mean a book gatherer 
 merely, but a man who knows something specifically about 
 drama — who is able to meet you with a specialist's knowl- 
 edge, other than that which he hastily gathers from a rather 
 inadequate card in the catalogue drawer. 
 
 In fact, as soon as a dramatic library is assured, I should 
 like every social institution around it, which has either 
 designedly or accidentally become possessor of rare books on 
 the theatre in its every phase, to hand these books over to 
 the special library. I would rob Peter to pay Paul in this 
 respect, provided both were assured children of the public. 
 This specializing under such generous conditions is the next 
 step in the development of American libraries. But, as far 
 as drama is concerned, we are somewhat late. In the future, 
 when our increasing interest in the playhouse has turned 
 us into a nation of theatre-goers, proud of the institution, 
 how many will wonder what has become of the libraries of 
 Daly, Palmer, John Brougham, William E. Burton, and 
 countless others? 
 
 As an instance of the fate of theatrical books: In the 
 Daly collection was Morrell's "Life of George Holland." 
 From a slim volume the manager had, with his numerous 
 additional pictures, letters, notices, and manuscript notes, 
 made two thick books. Joseph Holland, son of the 
 comedian, was on the road at the time of the sale, and wired 
 his order to New York. But he was too late, and assiduous 
 inquiry failed to reveal into whose hands this personal treasure 
 actually passed. Had there been a dramatic library, such 
 
346 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 an historical record would have been preserved from the 
 obscurity which now envelops it. 
 
 At one time I had occasion to gather certain facts con- 
 cerning Dion Boucicault; his son very graciously assisted 
 me from the mass of original material he possesses. It was 
 well-nigh impossible, notwithstanding, for our combined 
 efforts to frame a concise, accurate bibliography of Bouci- 
 cault's plays. This was partly due to the Irish writer's 
 prolific pen and to his genius for constructing dramas that 
 often never saw the form of whole manuscripts. It was 
 equally as much due to the fact that neither of us knew 
 exactly where to turn for further investigation. A library, 
 properly endowed, and under wise guidance, would have 
 facilitated such investigation. 
 
 Another need — and this a vital one. As an investigator, 
 where am I to turn to find the farces of Charles Hoyt in 
 accessible form, or to study the plays of James A. Heme, 
 Steele Mackaye, Henry De Mille, and others? Some of 
 these authors are at times represented in that undoubtedly 
 serviceable, though ghastly and inaccurate, edition pub- 
 lished by French, but often they are not the best of the 
 dramas, which later are destined to remain in manuscript. 
 
 With few exceptions, whenever I have applied directly to 
 the families possessing the "originals," I have met with un- 
 failing courtesy, and with generous interest. But what of 
 the future? There should be a dramatic repository for 
 original manuscripts, made accessible to the student of 
 drama. This lack was a possible reason for Professor Wen- 
 delFs ignoring of the American drama in his "Literary 
 History of America." Otherwise, we see no excuse for his 
 neglect of Howard and Heme and Fitch. If the Dramatists 
 Club does not see fit to make it a requirement that a play, 
 properly protected, be printed, even as a university requires 
 a thesis to be in book form, before granting a degree; if 
 
Photo, dy Morrison 
 
 Charles Hoyt 
 
THE NEED FOR A DRAMATIC LIBRARY 347 
 
 an organization such as the Dunlap Society had to die for 
 lack of proper support, — then a typewritten copy of the 
 manuscript should be deposited in a recognized place which 
 guarantees its protection and assures its perpetuation in 
 literary form. There is danger of losing our best specimen 
 otherwise. I had but just returned the manuscripts of 
 James A. Heme's "Griffith Davenport" and "Margaret 
 Fleming," when Mrs. Heme's country home was destroyed 
 by fire, and these only copies of the best examples of the 
 dramatist's art were irrevocably destroyed. Had a definite 
 literary museum for the drama been established, there would 
 have been some incentive for the Heme family to have 
 established a Heme collection for the enrichment of the 
 theatre. Were this policy adopted, it would give keen 
 pleasure to see the name of Clyde Fitch attached, in such a 
 dignified manner, to the literature of dramatic tradition. 
 In fact, nothing more appropriate could be than that a Fitch 
 Memorial Collection should be made available, for instance, 
 in New York, a city which he so well represented in his plays. 
 
 There is something stingingly true in Burke's utterance, 
 put in the mouth of his Rip Van Winkle: " Are we so soon 
 forgot when we are gone?" Players are human and die, 
 while their sons come into their heritage, possessing all the 
 tangible evidences of a recorded tradition in the form of 
 manuscripts, letters, and printed data. It is not to be ex- 
 pected that they will lend to everyone what records they 
 possess, yet it is not too wild a speculation to believe that 
 they would willingly donate to a dramatic library what- 
 ever books, papers, or personalia they owned which might 
 hold some public interest and some future value. 
 
 Of what should a dramatic library consist? It is not so 
 simple, as at first might seem, to limit the field, for, more 
 than any other art, the drama embraces so much that is 
 mere accessory, and calls upon all other arts for aid. But, 
 
348 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 beginning with a general division, there are three essen- 
 tial classifications: Historical, Theoretical, and Practical. 
 Neither of these, as an actual fact, is distinct, but the three 
 overlap, as all things do in nature. In the first of these 
 divisions there should be placed (1) the lives of the players, 
 and of all those connected with the stage in any way; (2) 
 the stage history of plays; (3) the record of performances 
 and the preservation of programs; (4) collections of pic- 
 tures and plans, together with (5) the histories of theatres 
 as homes for the acted drama. There would likewise be 
 made available (6) complete bibliographies of all topics 
 likely to be of immediate service to specialists. 
 
 In the second should be gathered books of a critical cast, 
 treating (1) of the drama and its evolution, (2) of the plays 
 in their construction, (3) of the dramatists and critics in 
 relation to their theories and practice, (4) of characters and 
 their various interpretations, in such style as is suggested 
 in the Variorum Shakespeare, and finally (5) of the drama 
 and its place in society. 
 
 In the third division should be gathered (1) every detail 
 which bears upon the theatre as a working proposition; 
 one should be able to obtain suggestions and historical 
 guidance (2) for all designs of costume, and (3) for particular 
 furniture or architecture peculiar to any special period. 
 There should also be every facility (4) for tracing the entire 
 evolution of the mechanism of the stage, such as the prog- 
 ress of lighting, which makes for the practical working of 
 illusion before the "foots," or without the "foots," as 
 Belasco and Gordon Craig desire. 
 
 The Avery Gallery, attached to the library of Columbia 
 University, at present is the only satisfactorily equipped 
 architectural collection for the technical study of the theatre. 
 The books are widely consulted, much to the satisfaction of 
 the authorities in charge, who are simply waiting an op- 
 
THE NEED FOR A DRAMATIC LIBRARY 349 
 
 portunity to cooperate with the dramatic library, once it 
 is securely established in New York. Of course, managers 
 have their individual books, but many works are difficult 
 to procure, and others are needed only for momentary 
 consultation. 
 
 It might take years to establish such an institution as 
 we imagine, but now is none too soon to begin. One of the 
 cherished hopes of the defunct National Art Theatre Society 
 was to found a library of wide scope such as that later at- 
 tempted by the Green Room Club of New York City, in 
 it to have at hand one of the largest collections of dramatic 
 books ever brought together, which would treat of the theatre 
 and of the drama in every particular. 
 
 Where in New York City shall the student turn to be 
 thus supplied? Wherever it behooves him to wander, he 
 is only partly satisfied. If the Public Library has one thing, 
 it has not the other, nor is there a systematic effort to keep 
 up to date. Even at the present time, to repeat, the Public 
 Library has no one in authority who is definitely assigned 
 to a department of the drama. If asked why they fail in 
 this respect, they will tell you that they are not required to 
 specialize in everything. This may be a fair reason, but 
 it does not explain their willingness to subdivide in classifi- 
 cation, to the smallest fraction, any scientific literature of 
 practical and public bearing. 
 
 No library at present contains such an equipment as we 
 have in mind. On private walls and in personal albums I 
 have come across playbills, brown and seared with age, 
 recording a few first productions, but these walls and albums 
 are scattered and private. Books on the drama very rapidly 
 pass out of print: Tyrone Power's "Reminiscences of the 
 30's,'' Hackett's volume about "Falstaff," Sothern's "Birds 
 of a Feather," the theatrical experiences of such men as 
 Smith, who knew his early South; of Ludlow, who caught 
 
350 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 the spirit of the early West. Even Dunlap, Ireland, Clapp, 
 and so recent an historian as Allston Brown are scarce in their 
 editions. This is how the matter stands in America. 
 
 There is the academic side to every library; there is like- 
 wise the practical. Unfortunately, as regards the theatre, 
 there are too many who are used to reading about it in a 
 trivial fashion when, both as an institution and as a pro- 
 fession, it has the rights, the possibilities, of the highest art. 
 Many attempts have been made by the disappointed play- 
 wright to establish a National Theatre; it has been found not 
 such an easy task as was at first expected. And so is the 
 problem going to be with a dramatic library, for first of all it 
 must be remembered that a dramatic library is all-inclu- 
 sive on the subject, at the same time that it is a library; that 
 it is many-sided in its purpose, however distinctive its name; 
 that it has its student side — its evolutionary and revolu- 
 tionary phases — as well as its practical side. 
 
 The cry has been heard for many days that the university 
 is too theoretical in its study of the stage, having neglected 
 the fact that Moliere, Shakespeare, and those of like mag- 
 nitude, were primarily practical playwrights. On the other 
 hand, in their turn, the university theatre-goers have ap- 
 pealed to public taste, have accused those in charge of 
 the drama's welfare of being absorbed in the practical to 
 the exclusion of the artistic. If it is not already too evident 
 to the reader, a dramatic library must be so equipped as 
 to balance the theoretical and the practical. Even though 
 privately organized, it should be public; or the theatre is 
 public, the actor in his professional capacity is public, and 
 the drama in every detail has been born of the public. 
 
 When some years ago there was so much talk about a 
 National Theatre, many were surprised to find themselves 
 at sea about the word national. In no other phase of creative 
 art is the inclusive meaning of the term so evident as in the 
 
THE NEED FOR A DRAMATIC LIBRARY 351 
 
 drama. More than any other form of human expression, 
 drama is comparative, for in all countries it has many ele- 
 ments in common; being active, it is imitative. There is 
 no such thing as an American dramatic library; and we 
 are fast coming to recognize that the American drama itself 
 is but a branch of English drama — distinctive, simply 
 because of local atmosphere and national traits — since 
 human passions are the same the world over. Hence, in a dra- 
 matic Hbrary, we must consider the drama as an organic 
 whole, and that means that the Frenchman, the German, 
 the Norwegian, the Spaniard, and the Italian must be satis- 
 fied, as well as ourselves. 
 
 The first question for us to ask is not: Where are the books? 
 Those will be forthcoming, by subscription and by donation, 
 just so soon as the more important questions of endowment 
 and organization are decided. There must be no cliques, 
 as is so often the case in innovations connected with the 
 drama; there must be no petty jealousies. It must be a 
 public dramatic library, for actors, managers, and indi- 
 viduals would more willingly contribute to such an institu- 
 tion, founded upon a broad basis, than give to a single actor, 
 manager, or individual, as the heart and soul of a casual 
 library movement, lasting perhaps a generation. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION OF 
 THE THEATRE 
 
 The theatre in America is passing through its newspaper 
 phase; in every department it is being influenced by those 
 economic forces which try to inflate the market without 
 improving the product, and which measure the product as 
 a commodity rather than as an art. Every industry is 
 subject to the laws of profit and loss, and the theatre is an 
 ever-increasing industry, since the amusement territory is 
 increasing. There is no concentration which would make 
 New York the theatrical centre in the way that London is 
 the hub of the United Kingdom. 
 
 Only by the combining of theatrical interests in the hands 
 of a few dictators has the theatre settled into some orderly 
 adjustment, exchanging independence of selection on the 
 part of the small manager and of the actor, for certain 
 salaried assurance. The theatrical interests have largely 
 been held in New York, although Chicago is increasing in 
 importance, while the road has accepted what it could get, 
 the local manager being only a dependent, with no incentive 
 or means to give his public what they want other than what 
 the Syndicate might allow them. 
 
 The history of the Theatrical Trust is hardly different from 
 the growth of any other trust, save in respect to the person- 
 alities of the men behind the combination. The magnates 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 353 
 
 who govern Wall Street know their trade down to the smallest 
 detail; they know the men with whom they have to deal, 
 and they are quick to measure the risk. The same may be 
 said for the theatrical manager. But the extraordinary 
 business man exceeds the exceptional theatre man in this 
 large respect: he understands the way the country is going; 
 he has his hand on the pulse of business conditions at their 
 greatest energy; he knows how the people are thinking 
 on public affairs. The theatre-manager has no such pene- 
 tration; he launches his individual enterprises as a gamble, 
 and depends upon the physical resources of theatricalism 
 to "boost" his product. 
 
 The history of the men who constitute the Trust is the same 
 in each case. Their one claim to serious consideration, 
 outside of the sphere of menace to an art, is the fact that, 
 having seen an opportunity to place art upon a sound com- 
 mercial basis, they combined with sufficient foresight to 
 corner the theatrical market. What they were not able to 
 observe was that, however sound the commercial basis, art was 
 still art, and that, while les affaires sont les affaires, human 
 nature is human nature. This fact alone would assuredly 
 betray them in the end. 
 
 We have heard much of the commercial theatre, but if 
 we stop to think, why should not a theatre be commercial? 
 For the play which does not draw is not acceptable to the 
 people, and while the box-office should not limit the art, at 
 least the art should not hold the box-ofiice in contempt, 
 since herein is worldly measure of its own excellence. The 
 weak spot in the theatrical situation is not the commercial 
 theatre, but the business methods of those behind it; and 
 the business methods proclaim the man. 
 
 Judged by all business, large enterprises must be organ- 
 ized, and organization is either scrupulous or not scrupulous. 
 The men behind the Trust were in it for profits, and having 
 
354 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 launched enterprises, they had to make these enterprises 
 sell. To do this, they found it necessary to control the 
 amusement arteries of the country. Thus, audiences either 
 had to take the food they found or else go without. This 
 blockading system was reached through a booking agency, 
 whereby time assignments were distributed for attractions 
 at the pleasure of the dictators and on the payment of certain 
 fees. Once under operation, this group of men, known as 
 the Theatre Trust, or Theatrical Syndicate, practically became 
 inquisitorial in its policy, tampering even with the independ- 
 ent opinion of the press. 
 
 Now was the time to prove the personality of the men, to 
 measure their attitude toward art, to realize their unfitness 
 to the full. They found the theatre business precarious, and 
 after a fashion they placed the finances on a basis of equilib- 
 rium. But in return, the drama had to sacrifice all that 
 conduced to the maintenance of its health as an art and as 
 a civic force. These men were "in" for the money, and so 
 skilful was their generalship that they told the North, South, 
 East, and West what they must have, whether they would 
 or no. Salaries were assured, but voices were silenced, and 
 there was no say in the theatrical worid save that of the 
 Trust. 
 
 Then arose an opposition, the chief significance of which 
 was that it did oppose. Cut of the same stuff, yet dissatis- 
 fied with its stock, this new combination grew because the 
 time was ripe, and because there was enough public opinion 
 in the air to father its growth. Factions kept coming its way, 
 from the South and from the West, while new theatres at 
 significant stations in the theatrical territory began to fall 
 away from the control of the octopus. Yet, despite the 
 disintegration brought about by this condition of affairs, 
 we have yet to see whether or not we have on our hands 
 more than one octopus. The meaning of this insurgency 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 355 
 
 in the theatre was nevertheless health-giving, or at least 
 held promises of renewed hope. For, let it here be said that, 
 after all, a manager's business is dependent upon the will of 
 the people, however much he may dictate terms. They like 
 what they like, and just as soon as they discriminate in 
 their liking, the manager's standard will have to change. 
 If good plays draw, the theatres will want good plays. 
 Whether those at the head have sufficient judgment to know 
 a good thing when they see it, is a matter of doubt. But 
 the commercial theatre has a perfect right to vend mediocre 
 musical comedies, if the people persist in wanting them. 
 
 As far as the Trust is concerned, all this time, art, the 
 supreme cause of the theatre, the life expression of the 
 people, was languishing beneath an ignorance of its nature. 
 Plays were manufactured for particular "stars," and these 
 actors, instead of the drama, were featured as the drawing 
 attractions. The dramatized novel and musical comedy 
 monopolized the boards. Those who were not in the game, 
 and those who refused subjection, suffered on the road. Mr. 
 Belasco, booking through the Trust, was denied time at St. 
 Louis for "The Darling of the Gods" during the Exposition, 
 while the opposition rushed its own " The Japanese Nightin- 
 gale" into the breach. Mrs. Fiske, unwilling to come to 
 terms, had to act in music halls and second-rate houses, 
 while Mme. Bernhardt carried with her a stage and a circus 
 tent. In the Southern circuit, the small manager was prac- 
 tically nothing more than a janitor, who received no con- 
 cessions and who could adopt no house policy. The 
 situation was chaotic. Actors like Richard Mansfield and 
 Francis Wilson, who had been among the first to oppose 
 strenuously the dictatorial policy, had, one by one, to come 
 to terms. 
 
 Through publicity, ground was prepared for the oppo- 
 sition. The *'open door " cry was an excellent slogan, and one 
 
356 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 in accord with popular sentiment. An independent policy 
 was nothing more nor less than the right for any manager, 
 irrespective of whether or not he was a member of a trust, 
 to "book" his attraction in any town possessing an inde- 
 pendent theatre. This free trade even admitted of the op- 
 position party asking for "time" in its rival's houses. For 
 a while, this will have the appearance of healthy compe- 
 tition, but as events are transpiring, there is every reason 
 to believe that the two will coalesce, and become more 
 powerful than ever. 
 
 Meanwhile, nevertheless, the theatre has been affected 
 by changing conditions, mental and economic. The drama, 
 as a subject of popular consideration, is being more sanely 
 discussed, and the type of play, closely in touch with the 
 newspaper, reflects a different order of interests. Public 
 agitation against old methods of management has made 
 opportune another slogan about an endowed theatre, a 
 civic playhouse, a memorial auditorium, wherein might be 
 perpetuated the real classics of dramatic art — away from 
 the blighting touch of commercialism. But even here, the 
 popular conception is wrong. Endowment on any basis 
 whatsoever does not permit the manager to disregard 
 popular demand; it only allows a certain margin of risk 
 and does not require an immediate return on the investment. 
 It does not say, "Lose"; but it assures the manager sup- 
 port where there has been failure in a judicious cause. 
 
 The one danger of independence, in the commercial sense, 
 lies in the sudden appearance of numberless mushroom 
 managers. Though we do not see it plainly at present, the 
 actor will eventually find that salaries will decrease, and 
 demands on his part will fail to possess their former value. 
 There will come a general slump in the market of stipend, 
 and while this may aid in the establishment of stock com- 
 panies, it will not guarantee, as the Trust did, that a company 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 357 
 
 in its circuit through the country will not be left high and 
 dry somewhere in the deserts of Arizona. 
 
 In other words, the disintegration of the theatre, in spite 
 of the efficacy of free trade, will be attendant with dangers. 
 It might degenerate into every playwright being his own 
 manager, just as there is an economic possibility of every 
 author having to pay for the publication of his own book. 
 Charles Klein has affiliated himself in a business way with 
 the Author's Producing Company; he prefers to have this 
 organization present Charles Klein's play than to have 
 announced on the billboards Henry B. Harris's new play 
 by Charles Klein (in small type). The " open door" affords 
 an ample opportunity for the new playwright to procure a 
 hearing; it widens the market, and increases the possibility 
 of a production. But it lacks concentrated energy; it is 
 wanting in the assurances of stability. 
 
 Nor has the "open door" policy prevented Charles Froh- 
 man from cornering the market in English playwrights, as 
 certain publishers have cornered certain authors and illus- 
 trators for their exclusive use. It is all in the game of busi- 
 ness competition. Mr. Frohman, strange to say, now finds 
 himself in a peculiar position; he has the plays and he has 
 not sufficient theatres in which to present them. The 
 Shuberts, by an almost phenomenal ability to procure realty 
 support, and by their persistent policy of fighting through 
 the medium of a newspaper which they founded for this 
 express purpose, have weakened the territorial influence 
 of the old Theatrical Trust. In return, they have not suc- 
 ceeded in inspiring confidence as to their own intentions. 
 
 This disintegration of the theatre, therefore, points to 
 a step which is very evident to those most desirous of honest 
 intent. The Syndicate faction assuredly placed the theatre 
 on a business basis, as I have indicated ; but they tampered 
 >vith the vital organ of the corporation, and becs^me dictg,^ 
 
358 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 torial in their booking of time, demanding excessive terms 
 wherever they wished commercially to make a production 
 impracticable in a neighborhood they themselves desired. 
 There is now an essential need for a dramatic clearing-house 
 which will ensure for the theatre business the same confi- 
 dence and the same stability which the New York Clearing- 
 House does for the banks. A man's business is his own, 
 but when he undertakes to serve as middleman for another, 
 then he subjects himself to ethical responsibility. 
 
 Another thing is to be said for the Theatrical Trust, how- 
 ever wrong it may have been in its business methods: there 
 was an efficiency about its work that was due entirely to the 
 experience of its theatre officials. The principle of its book- 
 ing system is excellent; its advance agents are keen and alive. 
 Nor can there be much fault found with its railroad ar- 
 rangements. Only when the theatre began to disintegrate 
 did one detect a laxity in management, due very largely 
 to the haste with which productions were thrown upon the 
 road, and to the calibre of the man sent ahead of the " show." 
 However ignorant the officials governing theatrical affairs, 
 they were sufficiently wise to bring to their aid cleverness 
 from the outside. They took newspaper men as their press- 
 agents and paid them large salaries to pursue a course that 
 has well-nigh been the undoing of dramatic criticism in this 
 country. 
 
 For the one corrective of the theatre is the publicity which 
 is given to it in our papers. The theatre-manager assures 
 his press representative an authoritative position, from 
 which vantage ground he seeks to establish a chain of papers, 
 willing to print any news emanating from the theatre office. 
 This eagerness to accept "copy" given freely, has been 
 largely responsible for the attitude assumed by the manager 
 in his demand that dramatic criticism in no way be allowed 
 to conflict with the positive effect of his advertising. 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 359 
 
 This struggle is wrong, but it may be easily attributable 
 to the unofficial character of the theatre critic's work. The 
 papers are not careful in their appointment of well-trained 
 men for the position. And we need such men in this period 
 of disintegration. It is usually argued, and rightly, that the 
 attractions of the "pass" are too great to confine the privi- 
 lege to one person; the advantages of advertising are too 
 evident to sacrifice them to the whim of one person's idea. 
 The press-agent's position is more sharply defined than that 
 of the dramatic critic; he is not handicapped; he may go 
 the limit, and he does so cleverly. 
 
 Another aspect that has aided in the disintegration of the 
 theatre is the character of the outside forces which have 
 detracted from the resources of the legitimate theatre. 
 First, the vaudeville houses have organized themselves into 
 a Trust as potent as that of the straight houses; second, 
 the moving-picture interests have combined so thoroughly 
 as to threaten theatre business on the road; and finally, 
 so many theatres are being erected in the large cities, notably 
 in New York, that they cannot be guaranteed sufficient sup- 
 port by the assurance of adequate demand or of worthy 
 supply. In other words, the economics of the theatre, having 
 passed through the stage of experimentation and organi- 
 zation, need to be studied with wisdom and forethought. 
 
 I cannot see where the " open door " policy is productive of 
 large and wholesome results, per se. It is, of course, more 
 honest by far to have all doors open than to work in the 
 dark and with a cut-throat policy at hand. But there still 
 remains the problem of personality, of manhood, in the 
 theatrical business. The situation is quite similar to that 
 of politics: a better class of men must be drawn into the 
 business, even as they must be drawn into the civic life of 
 the people. It is not enough that we have an organization; 
 each man must be of the highest quality. It is not enough 
 
360 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 that plays be produced in order to fill the increasing number 
 of theatres; the producer must be instinct with art. The 
 Theatrical Trust gave us an excellent shell; the soul has yet 
 to be supplied. 
 
 The disintegration of the theatre has shown us the im- 
 minent dangers of theatrical organization. There are two 
 phases of the business: the ledger side and the art side. 
 These should be separate in working process, and the former 
 should not limit the latter, even though art should have 
 regard for the box-oflfice. The crying need of the theatre 
 at present is for a dramatic clearing-house, and for a different 
 quality of art which flourishes upon a different spirit of 
 organization. The outward form will be very much the 
 same as it is now. We shall see that the theatre is disinte- 
 grating in order that it may be more closely and more soundly 
 organized in the light of its excellences and of its failings. 
 
 II 
 
 I believe that the theatre has much to contend with in the 
 increasing disillusionment of its audiences. A large asset 
 in the appreciation of a play consists in a naive acceptance 
 of its papier mache and of its convention. There was a time 
 when this was very real to all of us, when we did not care 
 whether thunder came from a tin sheet or the patter of rain 
 from the rattle of peas in a pan. The press-agent has at last 
 waked himself up to his great sin of commission : that in his 
 publicity work he has opened the doors of wonder too wide, 
 and has shown the miracle in shirt-sleeves. In the regener- 
 ation of the drama, one of the first things will be to bring 
 back the old-fashioned curiosity of audiences. 
 
 This will mean that the keen virtue of imagination will 
 have to be cultivated. When we criticise the paucity of the 
 Elizabethan stage with its paper signs, or of the mystery- 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 361 
 
 play platform with its bowl of water for the sea, we discount 
 the responsiveness of an audience, whose education may 
 not have been as general as ours, but whose minds were 
 more active and more sensitive to mere suggestion. So 
 rapidly has illusion deserted us, and so surprisingly have 
 the mechanical excellences of the theatre increased that, in 
 order to retain the shadow of "make-believe," audiences 
 demand settings which materially decrease the manager's 
 chances for large profits. 
 
 Such expenditure is warranted in spectacular pieces like 
 "Ben-Hur" and "The Shepherd King," where the plays 
 themselves had attractive appeal. But scenery can no 
 longer prop a weak drama, for the simple reason that the 
 jjeople are at last beginning to know something of the art 
 of the theatre. To a certain degree, the press-agent has 
 been responsible for this. Not that his journalism has lost 
 any of its advertising quality, but he is becoming more 
 judicious in his statements, and more sparing of his credu- 
 lous stories. There has even been a change, within recent 
 years, as regards the wild hero-worship which traveled in 
 the wake of the "star" system — a hero-worship largely 
 fed by the bits of stage gossip furnished from the press 
 department of every manager's office. 
 
 This condition is improving. Though the press-agent is 
 still primarily an advertiser for his "show," he is smart 
 enough to understand that his audience is manifesting in- 
 terest in the technique of the theatre. The education which 
 is thus taking place is somewhat due to the yearly publica- 
 tion of popular books on the drama by men who have knowl- 
 edge, yet are gifted with an unscholastic style. While these 
 volumes expound no new principles, they at least fa- 
 miliarize the public with those fundamental characteristics 
 which combine to make an excellent play. The critique - 
 thus gathered together in no way boast of the literal y 
 
362 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 distinction of the work of Hazlitt, Lamb, or Lewes; but in 
 their journalistic stricture, they do accustom theatre-goers 
 to question technique in drama as they would demand 
 balance in art. What is now needed in our criticism is a 
 more rigid scrutiny of our right to enjoy certain amusements, 
 and a more minute examination of the methods of the actor 
 as a creative artist. 
 
 In other words, — indirectly through the better class press- 
 agent; directly through the conscientious critic; and partly 
 through the publication of plays, — the theatre is receiving 
 an intellectual training which the commercial manager 
 already finds himself bound to recognize. Audiences are 
 becoming technicians, despite the old cry of the tired busi- 
 ness man. 
 
 The unrest which marks general theatrical interests, and 
 the dearth of plays which strains the manager's ingenuity, 
 are sufficient indication that no "open door" policy will 
 bring immediate relief, even though it give the unheard 
 playwright a hearing and a chance. The New Theatre in 
 its first year examined two thousand manuscripts for prob- 
 ably six acceptances. We are all writing plays, but they 
 have the demerits of imitation, and lack the strength of the 
 soil. The one school which we have in the drama is in the 
 observation of American conditions — especially as they 
 apply to business affairs. Once there was opportunity to 
 do big work in the aspects of rural life, but even James A. 
 Heme was touched by a fast declining melodrama which 
 soon went out of date, even as the sentiment peculiar to it 
 disappeared, despite its splendid odor of rosemary. 
 
 In the regeneration of the theatre, therefore, the play- 
 wright is growing to recognize that his own citizenship 
 means something in the conception of his drama; that the 
 one original opportunity of the outward drama, apart from 
 the spiritual essence of it, lies in the locality of which Howells, 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 363 
 
 Bret Harte, Octave Thanet, Page, and Cable have made so 
 much in literature. The scenic idea has created a seeable 
 American drama, but hardly a readable one or a preservable 
 one. "Salomy Jane/' "The Girl of the Golden West," "In 
 Old Kentucky," " Way Down East," " Sag Harbor," and such 
 titles occur to everyone; in fact, it is not too rash to state 
 that the theatre, topographically, has very well considered 
 the local differences of the country. But as yet the activity of 
 dramatic authorship has also become too diffuse — a char- 
 acteristic of newspaper training, and showing a want of set 
 purpose other than to write something for the theatre which 
 affords large returns upon the right thing. 
 
 Yet the widespread interest, as I see it, will mean that a 
 man properly accustomed to exact technique, and well- 
 trained in the professional and in the cultural phases of his 
 trade, will at last experiment in drawing from the soil matter 
 which is the essence of national life. This consciousness 
 of the matter at hand is not cultivated by artificial means, 
 but comes through necessity from within, through big con- 
 viction, through personal belief, through consuming interest 
 in this condition and in that type. It is not a mere observa- 
 tional, reportorial drama, such as we have in "The Lion 
 and the Mouse," or in "The Gamblers." Not one of our 
 American dramatists can thus far boast of challenging public 
 thought or of rousing public interest, other than that of fic- 
 titious excitement. 
 
 Our theatre needs a body of ideas; it needs to reflect in 
 better ways the undercurrent of American life. It lags be- 
 hind the newspaper instead of leaping forward and making 
 the newspaper keep up with it in civic pride and in common 
 honesty. If we are given poetic drama, it has the scholastic 
 idea that "Marlowe" and "Sappho and Phaon" are better 
 than "Hiawatha" and an epic of wheat, of hemp, or 
 of the New England conscience. If the play is social, it 
 
364 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 simply dramatizes the newspapers, busying itself about the 
 outward movement of life. The playwright knows that he is 
 sure of sympathy from audiences whenever he places the 
 warmth of American character in contrast with the artificiality 
 of foreign social intrigue; hence the popularity of Booth 
 Tarkington's "The Man from Home," and "The Gentleman 
 from Indiana." He knows that a certain representation of 
 the stress and strain of Wall Street will rouse curiosity; hence 
 "The Pit." But he is too prone to lose sight of the ethics 
 of business in the noise of "buncoism;" hence "The Gam- 
 blers" and "Get-rich-quick Wallingford." That is the usual 
 inclination of the reporter after a story. 
 
 The lure of large profits has been responsible to a marked 
 degree for the general weakness of our native drama. Writers 
 without technique in this special field have identified the 
 narrative conversation of fiction with the vital dialogue 
 of the stage, not realizing that the structure in each is dif- 
 ferent. Yet one cannot help believing that the interest of the 
 literary man in the theatre will affect the intellectual char- 
 acter of its future. 
 
 But the literary man is not a frequent theatre-goer; 
 whenever he is detected in numbers in the auditorium, it is 
 safe to reckon that he has been brought there by a promise, 
 not of drama in the theatrical sense, but of ideas in the 
 literary sense. If he likes the ideas, but finds that critically 
 the drama fails to be drama, he condemns the theatre and 
 hastens outside to deplore the decadence of the stage. 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich never could realize why " Judith of 
 Bethulia" did not prove acceptable; he attributed it to the 
 uncultivation of the theatre-going public, rather than to his 
 own failure to meet some of the essential requirements of 
 drama. Percy Mackaye, understanding the theory of stage- 
 craft, persists in clogging his dialogue with sentiments and 
 allusions wholly unsuited to quick-moving minds. 
 
DISINTEGRATION AND REGENERATION 365 
 
 Since this is the hterary condition of the drama, it is safe 
 to count the Hterary clientele as a body in itself dedicated 
 to the improvement of the theatre according to wrong 
 methods. In fact, since the Puritan first lodged his diatribe 
 against actor folk, there has been a persistent cry for the 
 improvement of the stage. Societies for dramatic betterment 
 have risen upon their own hopes and fallen because of their 
 own mistakes. Conditions are altered, not by dilettanteism, 
 but by whole knowledge and sound conviction. Audiences 
 may organize for the encouragement of particular plays, 
 but the big public outside of cliques will have its say, and 
 will register its decisions at the box-office. I have seen 
 committees of various organizations at the theatre, sent to 
 report on the relative merits of a play. I have seen the 
 reports: trite, commonplace, sweepingly impertinent in 
 approval or disapproval. The theatre is not harmed by 
 such a show of false culture, and there is some humor in the 
 fact that, though the drama is little influenced by such osten- 
 tatious intellectuality, the cliques themselves are at least 
 being made to take themselves and the drama seriously. 
 Undoubtedly they would have much more pleasure if they 
 were able, which they are not, to join the vulgar crowd in 
 its enjoyment. By their superiority, they are violating the 
 very essential spirit of the theatre. 
 
 Yet I do not wish to convey the idea that I want this 
 connection between literature and the theatre to be so close 
 as to hinder the theatre. Drama is no handmaiden to lit- 
 erature; it is the highest type of literary expression and the 
 most difficult in which to excel. The disintegration of the 
 theatre, as we have examined it, indicates clearly that the 
 methods of the Trust have not kept the good play from its 
 rightful public, for since the talk of the "open door," we 
 have had no startling discoveries in the way of exceptional 
 productions. The process of reorganization shows that in- 
 
366 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 tellectual improvement must be coincident with the higher 
 and more honest standard of presentation. For when we 
 speak of social and economic forces in the theatre, we speak 
 of the drama as a commodity and as an art. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 l'envoie 
 
 Present-day dramatic criticism in America is not an art, 
 but a pastime; one does not have to be specially trained 
 for the position, but more generally assigned to the position, 
 which is but another way of claiming that a play is more 
 likely to be reported than to be reviewed. 
 
 There are legitimate reasons for such a status, reasons 
 incontrovertible without a change in theatre management 
 on one hand and in journalistic policy on the other. As 
 matters now stand, there is not a financial editor who does 
 not believe himself as well equipped to render a decision 
 upon a play as the average theatre reporter — and no doubt 
 he is right. The want of authority, other than that attached 
 to the privilege of the "pass," makes of the general profes- 
 sional theatre-goer, who writes a column the morning after, 
 a figurehead no less than a deadhead. And it is just this 
 lack of understanding as to what his province really is that 
 threatens to jeopardize the position of the dramatic critic, 
 in view of the essential necessity of the press-agent to the 
 theatre as a business. At the present moment, we are 
 witnessing an interesting struggle for the survival of the 
 fittest; the press-agent of necessity is required to systematize 
 his business; the dramatic critic, save in isolated cases^ 
 is not allowed to declare his policy. 
 
 The diversity of opinion that we find in the morning paper 
 
368 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 after a "first night" is more likely due to an unpreparedness, 
 a lack of critical viewpoint, than to any fundamental logical 
 difference. And it is the lightness with which the decision 
 is rendered that shakes the confidence of the reading public. 
 The dramatic critic rarely speaks with authority; if he does, 
 he is in danger of hurting business. There is no question 
 as to whether the view of the theatre taken by the city 
 editor, simply as a field for possible sensational news, does 
 not detract from the dignity of the critic's own department. 
 The city editor's stand and the critic's stand are both legiti- 
 mate, yet they are far from being the same — or else, they 
 should not be. 
 
 The dramatic critic is not regarded as a necessity; he 
 is generally a sufferance. It is more often the case that the 
 editor looks askance at the prospect of engaging a man 
 who must, so the inference runs, be possessor of a jaded 
 intellect in view of his long service in the theatre. The 
 drama is the only art where, to-day, it is not a requisite to 
 have training and experience to render a decision; where 
 expert opinion is discounted in the face of the reporter and 
 the press-agent. After all, says the average theatre-goer 
 to the critic, it is your opinion vs. mine. You report that 
 a play is bad; you do not establish the fact by any formula- 
 tion of your opinion; my judgment is as likely to be as 
 authoritative. Because there is a large element of truth in 
 what he says, dramatic criticism is being threatened. 
 
 The requirements of journalism are more favorable to 
 the reporter and to the press-agent than to the critic, for 
 the simple reason that the theatre news reinforces the ad- 
 vantages of advertising. Those "official critics" who have 
 attempted to summarize a week's theatre activity in a 
 column or two of the Sunday edition have either underesti- 
 mated the mental capacity of their readers, or else have 
 failed, except in a very few cases, to understand that criticism. 
 
L^ENVOIE 369 
 
 as Walkley has declared, is not a parasitic art alone, but a 
 creative one as well — creative of an original outlook pro- 
 voked by the exigencies of the occasion, but more naturally 
 by the force of sound conviction. James Huneker is a 
 representative of the right type, but he is no longer a 
 dramatic critic of the conventional order; he is "off duty 
 forever " in the journalistic sense. 
 
 Every man, in his way, is a critic; he measures the capac- 
 ity of art by his own capacity to enjoy art. Hence, there 
 are among us some few who can span the arches of a master- 
 piece, and those there are who are good authorities on vaude- 
 ville ! But they are not equipped as they should be with the 
 complete understanding that assures one the third dimension 
 and gives one glimmering hope of a possible fourth. There 
 are critical processes which do not come within the calcula- 
 tions of the public, but which belong distinctively to the critic 
 — identification and detachment, characterized by Le Bon 
 as the psychology of the individual and of the crowd — 
 the proper relation of comparative values — the correct 
 and familiar uses of the factors in technique — the unerring 
 appreciation of the creative forces behind art. 
 
 Viewed in this light, the work of the dramatic critic Is 
 no minor task; in its way dependent upon a product out- 
 side of itself, it is at once a dictum and an outlook; it is 
 restrictive of a form and expressive of an idea; it is no sine- 
 cure, but a responsibility. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine appreciation as an exact science, 
 even though there are recognized standards in drama, as 
 there are in other art species, to allow of Matthew Arnold's 
 definition of criticism. But it is preposterous to claim that 
 the critic is so callous to emotional response as to be coolly 
 conscious of a wilful juxtaposition of the experiment with 
 the norm. He must be a keen and sympathetic observer 
 of all that constitutes life, to recognize how perfectly or how 
 
370 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 badly the artist has re-presented Hfe by means of its most 
 progressive, yet unconsecutive, moments. To him the 
 playhouse, in its threefold capacity of business, institution, 
 and art museum, becomes one of the civic centres for deep- 
 est realization of self-expression. He is to take his orchestra 
 chair with a sense that though a scholar — that is, a workman 
 with his tools by right — he is not a scholastic; that, though 
 writing for the morrow, he is framing opinion beyond the 
 morrow; that, though analyzing what he himself might 
 not be able to do as well, he is doing ably what his experience 
 has made as second nature to him. He sees unerringly and 
 his mind is clear. He knows what good art is and he questions 
 the presence of bad art. 
 
 This is perhaps theoretical and ideal, yet had we gone to 
 the theatre with Aristotle, our classic figure of a critic, we 
 would have been taken behind the simulation of nature into 
 a discussion of the very nature principles themselves. The 
 Greeks, as dramatic critics, were a little contemptuous of 
 this reflex life we call drama. In fact, run your memory 
 along the evolution of criticism as applied to the ancient 
 playhouse, and you will find that the attitude is largely 
 philosophical, and wholly ruled out of the present province 
 of the dramatic critic. In other words, with the modern 
 recognition of the theatre as a live activity in the civic body, 
 drama has peculiarly become severed from literature, o^ 
 which it is a legitimate and significant part. 
 
 Here, then, is one of the first steps in the rehabilitation 
 of the dramatic critic: to realize that, however journalistic 
 his career, he stands primarily for the dramatic spirit and 
 secondarily for the theatrical fact. He must claim for the 
 theatre its literary dignity — which will place bits of the 
 striking realism of Heme by the side of a similar realism 
 in Howells. It is peculiar how closely to the fundamental 
 philosophy of the dramatic both Mr. Howells and Mr. James 
 
L'ENVOIE 371 
 
 stand, without possessing that burning sense of the theatre 
 which should be an asset to the theatre critic. This is no 
 doubt due to the Umitation of the novehst, whose technique 
 is different from that of the dramatist, a fact he does not half 
 realize until failure on the boards drives it home. 
 
 The critic, therefore, is doubly sensitized: he is a lover 
 of art and a lover of life; he is to keep them separate and 
 yet view them conjointly, even as he measures his individual 
 impression, his estimate of the crowd from without its circle 
 of appreciation, and his impression as a unit in that crowd. 
 His decisions are not had by text-book definitions; they are 
 realized by right of his possession. Of what? That by virtue 
 of which I am I, meaning the public — and he the critic. Your 
 opinion vs. mine! Are the conditions such as to warrant 
 my challenging the critical authority in the theatre? 
 
 We value what Henry Arthur Jones writes of the play- 
 house, not so much because he is invigorating, as because he 
 is sane and progressive in the face of his national limitations. 
 Nevertheless, it is unwise for a dramatist to place himself 
 in the position of a critic, to furnish the weapons by which 
 later he is almost invariably wounded. Percy Mackaye 
 has written a book measuring democratic tendencies in the 
 present-day theatre. But it is for the critic to tell us what 
 the drama of democracy is to be; the dramatist is to give 
 us the type if he can. It is for the critic to analyze wherein 
 the poetic and commonplace may be blended on our stage; 
 the dramatist is to blend the qualities. The critical faculty 
 is always ahead of creative activity, but our dramatic 
 reporter seems to be almost slavishly dependent upon the 
 product; he deals with the neiv play and does not attempt 
 to go behind or beyond it. 
 
 In his prefaces and in his dramatic opinions, Shaw reveals 
 a rare discrimination and a delicious wit; his essays are 
 literature by the sheer force of his personality rather than 
 
372 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 because of the vital substance of the individual plays. This 
 is the reason Jones as a critic is of more sound importance, 
 in that he reflects tendencies, movements, national feelings, 
 rather than himself. The dominant personality of Shaw 
 is not the critical faculty, nor would the critic be allowed 
 his liberties. We accept his "Quintessence of Ibsenism" 
 because not everyone can discard Ibsen so impertineiitly 
 and give us instead the "Quintessence of Shaw." But he 
 is a good handbook for critics; sometimes we question 
 whether his critical bravery is not wholly dependent upon 
 Irish wit. 
 
 Place Shaw's book by the side of Walter Eaton's volumes 
 of American reviews culled from the New York Sun and 
 other papers: the one is brilliant, the other is excellent and 
 clever, marred on the one hand by a journalistic intimacy of 
 style and colloquial jargon, and on the other by a staid New 
 England moral reticence which we applaud, despite its un- 
 progressiveness. Yet both Shaw and Eaton exhibit in their 
 books the underlying weakness of the dramatic critic's claim 
 to literary permanence. They are dealing with transitory 
 stuff; their critical sermons are founded upon theatrical 
 quicksand; they outline the plots of plays that die within 
 a twelvemonth. 
 
 Therefore, the dramatic critic, by nature of his transitory 
 material, has somehow had thrust upon him the reporter's 
 immediate expression. But the demand of journalism has 
 perverted the function of dramatic criticism as it has the 
 scope of literary criticism. Among our newspaper editors, 
 Paul Elmer More alone has the opportunity of expressing 
 himself fully in the columns of the New York Evening Post 
 and Nation, using the essay form. But the dramatic critic 
 who, in the discussion of an inferior comedy or a mediocre 
 farce, should brush it aside lightly in his desire to pay tribute 
 to the excellence of Charles Hoyt, would not only be com- 
 
L'ENVOIE 373 
 
 mitting a breach against reportorial timeliness, but would 
 be committing a breach of courtesy against the advertising 
 column. The fact of the matter is that true dramatic 
 criticism will flourish only after journalism recognizes its 
 essential authority. 
 
 The critic and the press-agent are not antagonistic factors 
 in the theatre scheme; the struggle that is taking place is 
 due entirely to the fact that the manager requires expert 
 system and the editor is not over-anxious for expert decision. 
 Through excellent systematization, I have heard a press- 
 agent claim that within twenty-four hours he could com- 
 mand the columns of a chain of papers stretching from 
 coast to coast; he did not mean that he could, or would, 
 limit the expression of the critic on any of these papers, but 
 that he could send to these papers sufficiently attractive 
 "dramatic stories" to warrant their being used as "copy." 
 The press-agent is generally a trained newspaper man; if 
 he be a wise man, he will keep within the limit of credulity; 
 but his essential business is to create interest in his particu- 
 lar "attraction." In our Sunday papers we have seen the 
 discussion of the race problem, and we feel assured that the 
 press-agent for ZangwilFs "The Melting Pot" has done some 
 intelligent free advertising. He has, prompted by keen* 
 instinct, killed two birds with one stone; he has appealed 
 to the city editor's desire for bright, live "copy"; he has 
 sounded the fundamental note of his play. 
 
 The common expression we hear is : " Oh, that 's a press 
 story. " But the agent who courts false sensationalism, who 
 circulates personalities that are off color, who miscalculates 
 the intelligence of the newspaper man, is not typical of his 
 class. The press-agent to-day is a man of concentrated energy, 
 with a ready pen and a quick judgment. He must keep faith 
 with his manager and with the editor. He must not try to 
 make the reporter believe that there is good fishing in the 
 
374 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 Hippodrome tank, yet such a wild story is good advertising, 
 if used properly. 
 
 A most prominent press-agent has written to me of his 
 calling; his words, uttered with authority, are representative 
 of his profession. He says: 
 
 "The agent, having 'held down the dramatic desk' him- 
 self, understands the honor, pride, and traditions of the 
 position, and is not likely to ask absurdities or impossibilities. 
 . . . The old-time agent — the man with the high hat, 
 lightning-rod shirt, diamond headlight, and the general 
 make-up of an interlocutor in a minstrel * first part,' . . . 
 but who cannot write two consecutive grammatical sen- 
 tences, has passed away. Such a one now would be worse 
 than useless, except possibly in the smaller one-night towns 
 where glitter and imposing appearance awe the natives. . . . 
 It is the man with ideas who can write — he it is jivho suc- 
 ceeds as an agent in the city or on the road to-day — the 
 quiet, energetic, thinking man who studies the style, re- 
 quirements and policy of each paper, . . . who gives to the 
 critic salient data about plays and players, . . . and who 
 leaves the critic entirely alone when the latter is to write 
 his opinion of the performance." 
 
 This is a concise statement of the press-agent's province; 
 he aids the theatre advertising; he is at the service of the 
 theatre reporter. He has done his work so excellently that 
 the manager has come to believe that no statement should 
 be printed in a paper, sufficiently strong to counteract the 
 good work of the press-agent on the one hand, or the force 
 of his paid advertising on the other. We have known in the 
 course of theatre history instances where dramatic critics 
 have been removed because they have spoken out fearlessly; 
 we have been told of other instances where managers have 
 gone to the editor with the demand that the critic be re- 
 moved, a demand reinforced by the threat of withdrawing 
 
L'ENVOIE 375 
 
 newspaper patronage. Is there a critic to-day worth the 
 sacrifice in advertising of thousands of dollars? Yet the 
 present state of dramatic criticism is due to a lack of moral 
 support on the part of journalism. 
 
 We need a thorough rehabilitation of this profession; 
 until that time arrives, we are safe in pursuing the policy 
 of your opinion vs. mine. It is the drama itself that is 
 suffering from the lack of dramatic criticism, not the public. 
 Our reporters are toying with a serious art; they are ex- 
 ploiting and not attempting to create. But there is no deny- 
 ing that the dramatic critic who now lacks full preparation, 
 who is not given authority, who does not probe further 
 than he sees, will remain the reporter until he is liberally 
 prepared, is clothed in authority of expression, and is afforded 
 the proper medium for full creative criticism; until he is 
 backed by his editor. 
 
 II 
 
 A dramatic critic's position is not an easy one, and he is 
 only on the safe road when he separates the personal from 
 the impersonal. For his opinion of a product should in no 
 way affect his opinion of the man whom he criticizes. It is 
 a difficult problem to be critical, at the same time realizing 
 that the personality of the man was far greater than his art 
 accomplishment. In the preceding pages, strictures have 
 been made against friends, but honesty of purpose justifies 
 the statements. Not many authors have the bigness to 
 take criticism at its face value, no matter from what source, 
 and to measure its sincerity. In the working out of this 
 book, however, I have been met with remarkable examples 
 of simple faith and cultured com-tesy. I look back upon 
 my association with Mr. Howard and Mr. Fitch, and realize 
 that though we sometimes disagreed critically, these men 
 felt it worth while to clear up their opinions or mine. I 
 
376 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 remember the serious intensity of Mr. Mackaye, who might 
 not agree with me as to the province of the drama in a 
 democracy, but who, nevertheless, accepted my opinion 
 as coming with no other object than to sound the truth. 
 
 But as soon as a dramatic critic appears between covers 
 in an avowed survey of American drama, he then is chal- 
 lenged on all hands. Some say. Does he not realize that in 
 Louisiana at one time there flourished a Creole drama which 
 was not only written, but was acted in a definite French 
 theatre? And the answer comes: Yes, Alcee Fortier has 
 suggested a rich field for the research worker, but though 
 here was a hybrid type on American soil, it had little to do 
 with American drama as we have defined it, even though it 
 might have been inspired by American incident. The mere 
 fact of the foreign language would rule it from our consider- 
 ation. 
 
 Others say, Why has he so persistently ignored the women 
 dramatists? And there is only one reply for that. After 
 one has measured the excellence of Marguerite Merrington's 
 "Captain Letterblair" (1892), and the varied products by 
 Martha Morton, Grace Livingston Furniss, Rida Johnson 
 Young, Margaret Mayo, and Genevieve Haines, there is 
 little to say individually except that the cleverness of dia- 
 logue and situation show women to be factors in the theatre 
 of to-day. There is only one of them who has established 
 a style and an attitude. I mean Rachel Crothers, whose 
 "The Three of Us" and "A Man's World" display active 
 reasoning. 1 
 
 In other words, contemporary drama in America is plentiful, 
 but only after it survives the newspaper critic and the public 
 should it be reckoned in its relation to the body dramaturgic 
 
 » Mrs. Fiske has written several effective playlets, among them 
 the following: "The Rose," "The Eyes of the Heart," and "A 
 Light from St. Agnes." 
 
Photo, by Otto Sarony Co. 
 
 Rupert Hughes 
 
L'ENVOIE 377 
 
 as a whole. Eugene Walter's "The Easiest Way" shows 
 excellent technique and poignant handling, but it is, after 
 all, only a bit of reportorial realism which he has not so far 
 surpassed. At present he does not even justify the state- 
 ment that he is a man of one lasting play, as Moody may 
 claim to be in " The Great Divide." In a period when nearly 
 every one inspired to write is writing plays, it were futile 
 to give separate consideration to dramas which may draw 
 but which in noway strengthen the dramatic idea in America. 
 There are numberless men who may be grouped in the class 
 of newspaper paragraphers; they have given amusement 
 of various sorts to crowded houses, but they have stood for 
 little more than this popular amusement. Richard Harding 
 Davis belongs to this class; so do Edwin Milton Royle, 
 Channing Pollock, Rupert Hughes, Paul Armstrong, Willis 
 Steele, Henry Blossom, WiUiam CoUier, and CM. S. 
 McClellan. An historical survey is never contemporary, 
 and the fairest way for a critic to approach the theatre is 
 from the standpoint of dominant personalities and general 
 tendencies.^ 
 
 Playwriting is lucrative, but these men and women know 
 that it flourishes upon disappointment, upon the power of 
 taking infinite pains. It has its many forms, but in each 
 the essential theatrical requirement is construction, and it is 
 this which proves the stumbling block to so many aspirants. 
 But there is the equally important element which, it is to be 
 hoped, the foregoing studies have emphasized — the element 
 which goes hand in hand with construction — Idea. And 
 all these minor playwrights, minor in attitude if not in ac- 
 complishment, have awakened within the past decade to the 
 fact that the American dramatist will find that Idea in the 
 
 * For contemporary records, the student is referred to The 
 Theatre Magazine, under the excellent editorial supervision of 
 Arthur Hornblow. 
 
378 THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST 
 
 hopes and passions, the struggles, defeats, and victories 
 which constitute American Hfe. That is the forceful fact 
 which will persist after any consideration of the American 
 dramatist, from whatever viewpoint he may be regarded. 
 And the duty of the dramatic critic is to abet any sincere 
 effort that holds life and truth above glory and gain. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE AMERICAN 
 DRAMATIST 
 
 [Not much permanent writing has been done on the subject of the American 
 drama. Outside of biographies and general theatrical records, opinions concerning 
 playwrights and theatre conditions are to be fovmd only in magazines. Hence, the 
 student has to resort to the cumulative indexes. The following references are of 
 value simply as a means of affording some starting-point for further investigation. 
 Titles marked * are books. See Bibliography in the present author's " Famous 
 Actor-Families in America."] 
 
 *Adams, William Davenport. A Dictionary of the Drama. 1904. 
 Ade, George. 
 
 Father and the Boys. Excerpts. Current Literature, 45 : 316-24. 
 His Work. Book Buyer, 19:254, 1899. 
 How George Did It. Book Buyer, 25: 316. 
 Story of his Work. Munsey, 29 : 465-66. 
 Work of. W. D. Howells. North American, 176:739-43. 
 American on the Stage, The. J. B. Matthews. Scribner, 28:321. 
 ♦American Plays and Poetry in the Collection of C. F. Harris. 
 
 Providence, 1874. 
 Amusing People. Coney Island. Frederick W. Thompson. Metro- 
 
 politan Magazine, 32:601-10. 
 Audiences, Theatre, Psychology of. C. Hamilton. Forum, 39:234- 
 
 48. 
 Beck Collection of Prompt Books in the New York Public Library. 
 
 Bulletin, F., '06, pp. 100-48. 
 Belasco, David. 
 
 Advice to the Giri with Dramatic Ambitions. Woman's Home 
 
 Companion, 31:7. 
 Drama, Opinions on the. Current Literature, 23: 248. 
 Dramatic Schools. Cosmopolitan, 35 : 359-68. 
 Man, The, and his Work. H. A. Harris. Cosmopolitan, 47: 
 
 755-64. 
 Presentation of the National Drama. Harper's Weekly, 48: 
 
 1844-45. 
 Theatrical Syndicate. Cosmopolitan, 38: 193-98. 
 
380 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 *Bibliography, Dramatists. 
 
 Bulletin of Bibliography, No. 18. 38 pp. Boston Book Company, 
 
 1907. 
 
 *Blake. Historical Account of the Providence Stage. [See also 
 
 "History of the Providence Stage, 1762-1891." George O. 
 
 Willard. 1891.] 
 
 *Boston Theatre, History of the. E. Tompkins and Q. Kilby. 
 
 Houghton, 1908. 
 ♦Boston, The Drama in. WiUiam W. Clapp. Vol. IV., Chap. V, 
 in "The Memorial History of Boston." Edited by Justin 
 Winsor. [See files of Boston playbills in the Boston Public 
 Library.] 
 Boucicault, Dion, Rip van Winkle. J. L. Ford. Munsey, 35: 72. 
 [For Bibliography on B., see "Famous Actor-FamiHes in 
 America."] 
 Broadhurst, George H. Man of the Hour. Excerpts. Current Liter- 
 ature, 42:541-47. 
 Brougham, John. 
 
 *Life, Stories, and Poems. William Winter. Osgood, 1881. 
 *Comedians, A Group of. W. L. Keese. Dunlap Society Pub- 
 lication, n. 8., 15, 1901. 
 *Brown, Charles Brockden, Life of. William Dunlap. 2 vols. 
 
 Philadelphia, 1815. 
 Burlesque, Home of the. The Gaiety. R. L. Hartt. Atlantic, 101: 
 68-78. 
 W. D. Howells. Atlantic, 23: 635-44. 
 American. L. Hutton. harper, 81:59-74. 
 Founders of. Temple Bar, 29: 318. 
 ♦Chronology of the American Stage. F. C. Wemyss. 1852. 
 *Clapp, H. A. Reminiscences of a Dramatic Critic. Houghton, 
 
 1902. 
 *Clapp, J. B., and Edgett, E. F. Plays of the Present. Dunlap 
 
 Society, 1902. 
 Closet-Drama. Dial, 44: 163-65. 
 
 Legitimacy of the. J.B.Matthews. North American, IS7:21S- 
 23. 
 Colleges, Art of Drama in. K. Merrill. Education, 26:419-29. 
 Comedy, Modern. J.B.Matthews. Blackwood, 19: 4:Q. 
 
 Modern Tendencies of. C. Wyndham. North American, 149: 
 
 607-15. 
 Nature of. Living Age, 248: 378-81. 
 
 Two Thousand Years of. C. S. A. Herford. New England 
 Magazine, 53:441. 
 Comic Opera, The Dechne of. W. J. Henderson. International 
 Quarterly, Jan., 1905. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 381 
 
 ♦Covent Garden Theatre, Annals of, from 1732-1897. H. S. Wynd- 
 
 ham. Scribner. 
 *Cowell. Thirty Years Among the Players. 
 Crothers, Rachel. Troubles of a Playwright. Harper's Bazaar, 
 
 45:4. 
 Daly, Augustin. 
 
 American Drama (Daly). North American, 142: 485-92. 
 
 Appreciation of. A. I. Du P. Coleman. Critic, 35: 712-20. 
 
 Catalogue of autograph letters, playbills, etc. 
 
 Catalogue of his books. 
 
 Daly. Donahoe's Magazine, 42:35-41. 
 
 Daly Collection. Charles H. Caffin. Harper's Weekly, 44: 227- 
 
 28. 
 Daly Library. Henry Blackwell. Booklover's, 200-3. 
 Daly's Stock Company. L. C. Davis. Lippincott, 32: 396. 
 Daly Theatre, American School of Dramatic Art. J. R. Towse 
 
 and G. P. Lathrop. Century, 56:261-75. 
 Daniel Frohman and: Stock Companies Contrasted. A. 
 
 Brownell. Bostonian, 3:292. 
 *Diary of a Daly Debutante. Being Passages from the Journal 
 
 of a Member of the Daly Famous Company of Players. Duf- 
 
 field, 1910. 
 Dramatic Dictator. Booklover's, 3:401. 
 
 Group of Rare Lambs. L. R. McCabe. Book Buyer, 20: 33-40. 
 His Life Work. Critic, 35:579; Cosmopolitan, 27:405-18, 
 
 G. Kobbe. 
 Library of. Athenceum, 1900, 1 : 371-72. 
 Modern Stage and. Saturday Review, 79: 860. [See G. B. 
 
 Shaw's ''Dramatic Opinions."] 
 Story of the Daly Bible. L. R. McCabe. Catholic World, 70: 
 
 809-20. 
 Treasures of the Daly Library. C. Shipman. Critic, 36: 213- 
 
 19. 
 [See also pubhshed plays by Daly; cf. his Shakespeare edition 
 
 with the editing of Edwin Forrest.] 
 Daly, C. P. When Was the Drama Introduced in America? 1864. 
 
 [Pamphlet.] 
 *The First Theatre in America. Dunlap Society Publication, 
 
 n. s., V. 1, 1896. 
 Davis, Richard Harding. 
 
 *Farces: The Dictator, The Galloper, etc. Scribner, 1906. 
 Playing the Drama. Collier, 42: 14. 
 ♦Drama, The: Its Laws and its Technique. Elizabeth Woodbridge. 
 
 Allyn and Bacon, 1898. 
 ♦Study of the. J. B. Matthews. Houghton, 1910. 
 
382 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Drama (Continued) 
 
 *Decline of, Cause of. Dunlap. American Theatre, 1 : 407. 
 About Play-Acting. M. Twain. Forum, 26: 143-51. 
 Early, in Boston. C. H. Pattee. Bostonian, 2:254:. 
 Foreign, on the English and American Stage. No. II. C. 0. 
 
 Ayer. Colorado University Studies, 7: 63-72. 
 Future of the. Arthur Bourchier. Nineteenth Century, 62: 441-56. 
 Modern, Corner-stones of the. H. A. Jones. Fortnightly, 86: 
 
 1084-94. 
 Modern, The. WilUam Archer. McClure, 34: 3-16. 
 National, Foundations of a. H. A. Jones. North American, 
 
 186:384-93. 
 New, and New Theatre. William Archer. McClure, 34: 3-16. 
 of Democracy. P. Mackaye. Columbia University Quarterly, 
 
 10: 173-83. 
 of Ideas. N. Hapgood. Contemporary, 74: 712-23. 
 of Revolt. H. H, Boyesen. Bookman, 1 : 384. 
 of the Moment, and Ibsen's Plays. H. A. Kennedy. Nineteenth 
 
 Century, 30:258-74. 
 Plain Talk on the. Richard Mansfield. North American, 155: 
 
 308-14. 
 Printed, Plea for the. Current Literature, 41 : 541-42. 
 Social, Modern. C. Hamilton. Forum, 40: 265-73. 
 U. S. 1881. To-day in America. J. Hatton. 2:1. 
 Drama, American. [See Cumulative Indexes.] 
 
 *Two volumes. In the Victorian Edition of "The Drama." 
 
 [Edited by Alfred Bates. PubUshed by Smart and Stanley.] 
 
 See Vols. XIX, XX. 
 A. Daly. North American, 142:485-92. 
 H. Garland. Literary World (Boston), 20: 307. 
 L. Hutton. Lippincott,S7 :2S9. 
 I. A. Pyle. Lippincott, QQ: 131. 
 
 and the American Library. P. Wilstach. Bookman, 8: 134. 
 Beginnings of. P. L. Ford. New England Magazine, n. s., 9: 
 
 673-87. 
 Beginnings of, in America. R. Davey. National, 19: 802. 
 Beginning of the, in America. O. Wegehn. Literary Collector j 
 
 9:177-81. 
 Characteristics of. A. Hennequin. Arena, 1 : 700. 
 Dawn of. J. Corbin. Atlantic, 99:632-44. 
 Early. F. S. Gay. Nation, 88: 136. 
 Early. W. J. Neidig. N atio7i, S8:8^S8. 
 Future. D. Boucicault. Arena, 2:641. 
 Kicking out the Great. By a Professional Play-reader. Mun- 
 
 sey, 41 : 844-49. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 
 
 American Drama {Continued) 
 
 Poetic. L. C. Willcox. North American, 186:91-97. 
 Revisited. William Archer. Independent, Q2: 1519-25. ' 
 Drama in America. 
 
 American Quarterly, 1: 331; American Whig Review, 2: 117(E. 
 
 A. Poe); Democratic Review, 40:554; Dublin University, 74: 
 
 319; also A''. Ecclesiastical, 5: 555; London Monthly, 16: 
 
 466; Potter American Monthly, 8: 23, 346. 
 
 Dramatic Critic: His Work and His Influence. E. A. Dithmar. 
 
 Forum, 23:237-45. 
 Dramatic Criticism, Concerning. R. M. Sillard. Westminster, 150: 
 634-40. 
 Theory of. N. Hapgood. Forum, 27: 120-28. 
 ♦Dramatic Index. 1909, 1910. Edited by Frederick W. Faxon. 
 
 Boston Book Company. 
 Dramatic Outlook in America. J.B.Matthews, fl^arper, 78 : 924-30. 
 Dramatist and the Theatre. J. B. Matthews. Century, 79: 3-19. 
 Dramatists, American. A. Hornblow. Munsey, 12: 159. [See the 
 files of the Theatre Magazine, of which Mr. Hornblow is the 
 Editor.] A. Davies. Cosmopolitan, 'iO: 81. 
 Protecting Native. Nation, 91 : 504. 
 Dramatists, Our New Generation of. W. P. Eaton. American 
 
 Magazine, 71 : 120-29. 
 ♦Dramatization of Novels. J. B. Matthews. See "Books and 
 Plays" and "Pen and Ink." [See also Bookman, 28:233; 
 Cosmopolitan, 36:387; Book Buyer, 19:282; Nation, 87: 
 256-57.] 
 Dramatizations. P. Wilstach. Dial, SB: 5. 
 
 Dunlap, William, and his Writings. O. Wegelin. Literary Collector, 
 7 : 69-76. [See Dunlap's "History of the American Theatre." 
 1883.] 
 *Dunlap, William. Kotzebue references in Frederick H. Wilkins' 
 "Early Influence of German Literature in America." Ameri- 
 cana Germanica, 3: 103-205, 1899. 
 *Eaton, Walter P. The American Stage of To-day. Small, May- 
 nard, 1908. 
 *At the New Theatre and Others. (1908-1910) 1910. 
 Economics and the. Drama. J. G. Leigh. Economic Review, 19: 
 
 174-81. 
 Farce, Return of. W. P. Eaton. American Magazine, 71 : 264-73. 
 Fitch, Clyde. 
 
 City, The. C. Hamilton. Bookman, 31: 63-66. 
 American Playwright. C. Hamilton. Bookman, 30: 135-38. 
 As a Dramatist. J. R. Towse. Nation, 84: 526-27. 
 Bachelor, The. C. Hamilton. Forum, 41: 340-41. 
 
384 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Clyde Fitch (Continued) 
 
 Critical Appreciation. M. Birnbaum. Independent, 67:123-31. 
 ♦Clyde Fitch: A Tribute. As a Foreword to *' A Wave of Life." 
 
 [Signed, M. J. M.j 
 Dramatist as a Man of Letters. W. P. Eaton. Scribner, 47: 
 
 490-97. 
 How He Writes His Plays. Ada Patterson. Theatre, 7: 14- 
 
 16, vii. 
 Impersonal Note in Criticism. A. Dale. Cosmopolitan, 47: 
 
 347-52. 
 Popular Playwright. Putnam, 7 : 244-46. 
 Sketch. Nation, S9: 2^0. 
 Current Literature, 47:316-17; 47:552-54. 
 ♦Forrest, Edwin, Life of. W. R. Alger. 1877. 
 Frohman, Charles. 
 
 Character Sketch. S. E. Moffat. Cosmopolitan, 33:293-96. 
 
 Frohman's Repertory. Blackwood, 187:580-82. 
 
 New Phases of Theatre Management. Harper^ s Weekly, 48: 
 
 2022-24. 
 Sketch of Frohman. Munsey, 21 : 945. 
 
 When Actors Play to an Audience of One. J. D. Williams. 
 Ladies' Home Journal, 27 : 9. 
 Frohman, Daniel. 
 
 Manager's View of the Stage. Harper's Weekly, 48: 1988-89, 
 
 1999. 
 ♦Memories of a Manager: Reminiscences of the Old Lyceum. 
 
 Doubleday, 1911. 
 Tendencies of the American Stage. Cosmopolitan, 38: 15-22. 
 Theatres, The, and the Pubhc. Independent, 64:252-53. 
 *Gamett, Porter. The Bohemian Jinks. Bohemian Club. 1908. 
 *Grau, Robert. Forty Years' Observation of Music and Drama. 
 1909. 
 *The Business Man in the Amusement World. 1910. 
 ♦Hamilton, Clayton. The Theory of the Theatre. Holt, 1910. 
 ♦Hapgood, Norman. The Stage in America, 1897-1900. Mac- 
 
 millan, 1901. 
 Howard, Bronson. His Work. Bookman, 10:195. 
 
 Our Schools for the Stage. (B. H.) Century, 61 : 28-37. 
 The Banker's Daughter. J. L. Ford. Munsey, 34: 122, 199. 
 The Plays of. Century, 3: 465. 
 Howells, W. D. A New Taste in Theatricals. Burlesques. Allan- 
 iic, 23:635-44. 
 ♦Criticism and Fiction. Harper, 1892, 
 John T. Raymond as Col. Sellers. Atlantic, 35:",749-51. 
 Plays of Henry Arthur Jones. North American^ 186: 205^12, 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 385 
 
 Ho3rt, Charles H. An Analysis of his Farces. ^Bostonian, 3 : 386. 
 Humor, American, and Bret Harte. G. K. Chesterton. Critic, 
 41 : 170-74. [In " Varied Types."] 
 
 American Humorists. J. Benton. Bookman, 21 : 584-89. 
 
 American Sense of. H. Roof. Outlook, 96: 311-16. 
 
 Broad American. N. Hapgood. [Weber and Fields.] See his 
 "The Stage in America." 
 
 Capable Humorist. M. Twain. Harper's Weekly, 53: 13. 
 
 Century of American. J. L. Ford. Munsey, 25 : 482-90. 
 
 Essence of. A. C. Benson. Putnam, 3: 48-54. 
 ' Essence of American. C. Johnstone. Atlantic, 87: 195-202. 
 
 Feminine Humorists. A. B. Maurice. Good Housekeeping, 
 50:34-39. 
 
 First Lessons in. C. Wells. Century, 64: 77-83. 
 
 Holmes as a Humorist. J. W. Linn. University of Chicago Mag- 
 azine, 2: 16-23. 
 
 Mr. Dooley. Living Age, 267: 439-41. 
 
 Newspaper. W. D. Nesbit. Independent, 54: 804-6. 
 
 Place of American. F. Treudley. Educational Review, 40: 92- 
 96. 
 
 Retrospect of American. W. P. Trent. Century, 63 : 45-64. 
 
 Sense of Nonsense. Carolyn Wells. Scribner, 29: 239-48. 
 
 Some Humorists. L.Hancock, ^oo^man, 16: 15-22. 
 
 Word Concerning American. J. K. Bangs. Book Buyer, 20: 
 205-8. 
 *Hutton, L. Curiosities of the American Stage. Harper, 1891. 
 ♦Ireland, J. N. History of the Stage in New Yorli. (1750-1860.) 
 
 1866. 
 *James, Henry. Brownell. W. C, American Prose Masters, 
 pp. 339-400. Atlantic, 95 : 496-519. 
 
 American, The, on the Stage. Atlantic, 68: 846-48. 
 
 *French Poets and NoveUsts. Macmillan. 1893. 
 
 ♦Theatricals. London, 1894. 
 
 * Views and Reviews. Boston, 1908. 
 Klaw, Marc. Theatrical Syndicate. Cosmopolitan, 38: 199-201. 
 Klein, Charles. 
 
 Daughters of Men. Excerpts. Current Literature, 42:73-77. 
 
 Klein and the Third Degree. A. Ruhl. Collier, 42: 17. 
 
 Lion and the Mouse. Excerpts. Current Literature, 42: 427- 
 33. 
 
 Merriwold Dramatists. B.Millard. Bookman, 29:627-33. 
 
 Psychology of the Drama. Reader, 7 : 374-77. 
 
 Religion, Philosophy, and the Drama. Arena, 37:492-97. 
 
 The Gamblers. Excerpts. Current Literature, 50: Qil-'^S. 
 
 Third Degree. Excerpts. Current Literature, 47:427-33. 
 
386 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Charles Klein (Continued) 
 
 Third Degree. B. O. Flower. Arena, 41: 139-52. 
 Third Degree and Reformation of PoHce. L. F. Pierce. World 
 To-day, 17:966-73. 
 Lancaster, A. E. Historical American Plays. Chautauquan, 31: 
 
 359-64. 
 Librettist and his Profits. G. Middleton. Bookman, 28: 116-23. 
 Librettists and Librettos. L. M. Isaacs. Forum, 42: 333-43. 
 Literature and the Drama. E. Fawcett. Dial, 14:38. 
 G.Moore. Fortnightly, 52: Q20-32. 
 H. D. Traill. New Review, 5: 502. 
 Literature, and the Drama. H. A. Jones. Atlantic, 98: 796-807. 
 E. A. Baughan. Fortnightly, 90: 775-82. Ldving Age, 259: 781- 
 
 87. 
 ♦Relation of Drama to. J. B. Matthews. Historical Novel, 
 217-38. 
 ♦Mackaye, Percy. The Playhouse and the Play. Macmillan, 1909. 
 ♦Magazine and the Drama. An Index. James Harry Pence. Dun- 
 lap Society Publication, 1896. 
 Manager vs. Critic. Paul Armstrong and Hartley Davis. Every- 
 body, 21:119-25; 125-30. 
 ♦Matthews, J. Brander. The Historical Novel and Other Essays. 
 Scrihner, 1901. [The Relation of Drama to Literature. 
 The Conventions of the Drama. The Art and Mystery of 
 Collaboration.] 
 ♦Inquiries and Opinions. Scrihner, 1907. [The Modern Novel 
 and the Modern Play. The Literary Merit of our Latter-day 
 Drama. The Art of the Stage-Manager.] 
 ♦Pen and Ink. [The Dramatization of Novels.] Scrihner, 1902. 
 Melodrama. H.J.Smith. A iianiic, 99:320-28. 
 Merrington, Marguerite. The Theatre for Everybody. World^s 
 
 Work, 21 : 13806-9. 
 Merriwold Dramatists. B.Millard. Boofcman, 29 : 627-33. 
 Middleton, George. Planting a Play. Bookman, 32: 148-53. 
 ♦Murdock, James E. The Stage. 
 Museum-Gallery for the Drama. J. B. Matthews. Bookman, 22: 
 
 174-79. 
 New England's Contribution to the Stage. New England Maga- 
 zine, 39:634-36. 
 Newspaper and Theatre. Outlook, 93: 12-13. 
 New Theatre. 
 
 American Magazine, 69:696-704; Nation, 89:466-67; Outlook, 
 
 93:613-15. 
 and Contemporary Plays. C. Hamilton. Bookman, 30: 456-64. 
 At the. A. Ruhl. Collier, 44: 16. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 387 
 
 New Theatre (Continued) 
 
 Henry Miller and the. Current Literature, 48: 318-19. 
 Its Aim and Success. Outlook, 94: 514-15. 
 Literary Mail. Bookman, 30: 336-38. 
 Service to Dramatic Art. Everybody, 22:265-74. 
 The Director of. W. Inglis. Harper's Weekly, 53:8-9. 
 Year at. W. P. Eaton. Atlantic, 105:689-96. 
 Year at. M. J. Moses. Independent, 68: 1030-35. 
 W. Ames. Collier, 44: 17-19. 
 J. Corbin. Harper's Weekly, 52, no. 35:23, 30. 
 J. Corbin. Outlook, 93: 395-406. 
 M. Merrington. Bookman, 27: 5Q1-QQ. 
 W. L. Phelps. Independent, 67:957-62. 
 What It Stands for. Collier, 44: 10. 
 Novel and Drama. Advice to Authors. Blackwood, 57:679-87 
 (1845). 
 Drama and the. Norman Hapgood. "The Stage in America." 
 Dramatized, Earnings of the. G. Middleton. Bookman, 28: 
 
 233-39. 
 Modern, and Modern Play. J. B. Matthews. North Ameri- 
 can, 181:699-711. 
 Novels, Dramatization of. J. B. Matthews. Longmans, 14:588. 
 J. M. Porter. Macmillan, 40:244. 
 Dramatizing, Art of , P.Potter. Cosmopolitan, S6:SS7. 
 Turned into Plays. E. A. Dithmar. Book Buyer, 19: 282-84. 
 Novelists, English, as Dramatists. E. Morton. Bookman, 7: 481-84. 
 Novehzed Play. Nation, 87: 256-57. 
 
 Palmer, A. M. and his Theatre. G. E. Montgomery. American 
 Magazine, 9:1. 
 Moral Influence of the Drama. North American, 136: 581-606. 
 Why Theatrical Managers Reject Plays. Forum, 15: 614-20. 
 Panic, Theatres and the. D. Frohman. Independent, 64:252-53. 
 *Pantomime, A History of . R. J. Broadbent. London, 1901. [See 
 
 Chapter XX, "Pantomime in America."] 
 *Payne, John Howard, Life of. Gabriel Harrison. Lippincott, 1885. 
 
 [Contains a Bibliography of his plays.] 
 Play, First, in America. W. J. Neidig. Nation, 88:86-88. 
 F. L. Gay. Nation, 88:136. 
 Problem, Moral Aspects of the. L. W. Flaccus. Atlantic, 102: 
 
 638-46. 
 The Matter of the. M. M. Fiske. International Monthly, 5: 
 629. 
 ♦Plays, Early American (1714-1830). O. Wegelin. Literary Col- 
 lector Press, 1905. [See also Dunlap Society Publication, n. s., 
 1900.1 
 
388 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 ♦Plays, Later American (1831-1900). Robert F. Roden. Dunlap 
 
 Society, 1900. 
 Plays, More Early American. O. Wegelin. Literary Collector, 2: 
 
 82-84. 
 Plays, Printing of. C. H. Meltzer. Independent, 62:20-23. 
 
 Publishing of. J. B. Matthews. North American, 182: 414-25. 
 that Don't Get Played. J. Corbin. World's W<yrk, 20: 13035- 
 41. 
 Playwright and his Players. J. B. Matthews. Scribner, 45: 116- 
 20. 
 and Playgoers. J. B. Matthews. Atlantic, 102: 421-26. 
 Unproduced, and his Play. G. Middleton. jReader, 10: 167-76. 
 Playwrights, Dearth of. Nation, 84: 448-49. 
 in the United States. Bookman, 30: 35-38. 
 Younger American. C.Hamilton. J5oofcman, 32:249-57. 
 Playwriting, Success in. E. Marbury. Harper's Weekly, 49: 1786; 
 
 1792-93. 
 Poetry and the Stage. S. Gwynn. Fortnightly, 91: 337-51; also 
 
 Ldving Age, 261:3-14. 
 Press-Agent, Theatrical. Independent, 59 : 191-96. 
 ♦Ritchie, Anna Cora Mowatt. Autobiography. 
 
 On Frances Anne Kemble. Macmillan, 68 : 190. 
 *Rees, J. The Dramatic Authors of America. Philadelphia, 
 
 1845. 
 Savage, Henry W. American Managers and Players. Harper's 
 Weekly, 48:1846-47. 
 Opera in English for Americans. Independent, 52: 1109-11. 
 Schools, American Dramatic. Algernon Tassin. Bookman, 25: 151- 
 
 65. 
 ♦Smith, Solomon F. Theatrical Management in the West and 
 
 South. Harper, 1868. 
 Stage, American. Fred Daly. Time, 13: 29-169. 
 
 Condition of. J. Magnus. North American, 144: 169-178 
 
 (1887). 
 Supremacy of the. A. Dale. Cosmopolitan, 48: 75-80. 
 Tendencies of the, D. Frohman. Cosmopolitan, 38: 15. 
 Stage. Our National. James L. Ford. McClure, 32: 491-99. 
 
 Passing of the Great. W. P. Eaton. Munsey, 41: 311-22. 
 Stage Management, Neglect of. W. P. Eaton. American Maga- 
 zine, 71 : 400-9. 
 Stock Companies and their Earnings. Geoffrey Monmouth. Book- 
 man, 31:276-81. 
 Syndicate, The. Norman Hapgood. In "The Stage in America." 
 Theatrical, Rise and Fall of. W. P. Eaton. American Maga- 
 zine, 70:832-42. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 389 
 
 Tarkington, Booth. Sister Arts: Novel or Drama for pathos or 
 
 comic hits. Collier, 42: 15. 
 Theatre, American. Early Days. Dial, 7: 271. 
 
 First. G. H. Moore. North American History, 21 : 58. 
 Over-production in the. C. Hamilton. Forum, 42: 353-65. 
 Paucity of Themes' in the. C. Hamilton. Forum, 41: 544-51. 
 Present Condition in. J. D. Barry. Booklover's, 5:239. 
 Seilheimer. Athenceum, '90, 1:56. 
 Theatre, Endowed, American. Arena, 31:641; 32:48. 
 
 and the American Stage. H. Modjeska. Forum, 14: 337-44. 
 Business of a. W. J. Henderson. Scrihner, 25: 297-314. 
 Business Side of the. Hartley Davis. Everybody, 21 : 665-74. 
 Subscription, W. D. Howells. Literature, 4: 313-14. 
 Trust on View. J. R. Towse. Nation, 80: 348. 
 Vaudeville. E. M. Royle. *Scn6ner, 26:485-95. 
 What is the Matter with the? J. S. Metcalfe. World's Work, 
 
 16:10204^7. 
 Theatrical Business in America. C. Hawtrey. Fortnightly, 79: 1010- 
 
 16. 
 Conditions. A^a^zon, 84: 182-83. 
 *Independent Movements. G. Davenport. Boston, 1907. 
 
 [In "Stage Affairs in America To-day,"] 
 Manager, A Plea for the. L. F. Deland. Atlantic, 102: 492- 
 
 500. 
 Stock and Its Dividend. G. Monmouth. Bookman, 31 : 276-81. 
 Theatrical Trust. Cause of Degradation of Drama. J. Ranken 
 
 Towse. ATo^ion, 84:448-49. 
 Thomas, Augustus. 
 
 And the Bogy Man, A. Ruhl. Collier, 44: 23. 
 Autobiographical Sketch. Outlook, 94:212-14. 
 Claims of the Candidates. North American, 187: 801-50. 
 Harvest Moon. Excerpts. Current Literature, 47: 661-68. 
 How I Wrote My Greatest Play. A. T. Delineator, 73: 221- 
 
 22, 
 Typical American Dramatist. V. W. Brooks. World's Work, 
 
 18: 11882-85. 
 Witching Hour. Excerpts. Current Literature, 46: 544-51. 
 Work of. W. Winter. Harper's Weekly, 5:13. 
 
 [See also Harper's Weekly, 4:4:'. ^^7; ilfwnse?/, 24: 413-19; 
 
 27:522; Bookman, 14:449; Critic, 44:205; Sewanee Review, 
 
 April, 1907.] 
 
 * "Alabama," "Arizona," and "As a Man Thinks" have been 
 published. 
 *Tragedy, Our Idea of. E. E. Hale, Jr. In "Dramatists of To- 
 day." 
 
390 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Thompson, Denman. Current Literature, 50:641-48. 
 
 W. H. Walsh. New England Magazine, 43: 43-50. 
 Tragedy. The Origin of. W. Ridgeway. Quarterly, 209: 504-23. 
 
 What is a. H. Caine and R. Buchanan. Academy, 34: 15,30. 
 Trust, Theatre. W. D. Howells. Harper's Weekly, 42: 202. 
 *Tyler, Royall. The Contrast. Dunlap Society Pubhcation, No. 1, 
 
 1887. 
 Vaudeville, Breaking into. S. Collins. Collier, 42: 20. 
 
 Business Side of. H. Davies. Everybody, 17: 527-37. 
 
 Decay of. American Magazine, 69: 840-48. 
 
 Decline of. Harper, 106: 811-15. 
 
 Holds the Boards, Where. C. R. Sherlock. Cosmopolitan, 32: 
 411-20. 
 
 In. H. Davies. Everybody, 13:231-40. 
 
 Investigation of. N. Alliston. Independent, 53: 1733-36. 
 
 Tony Pastor. Harper's Weekly, 52: 10. 
 
 Trend of. Independent, 53: 1092-93. 
 *Walter, Eugene. The Easiest Way. Privately printed. 
 ♦Washington and the Theatre. P. L. Ford. Dunlap Society Pub- 
 lication, n. s. 8, 1899. 
 ♦Wernyss, F. C. Chronology of the American Stage. [1752-1852.] 
 
 *Twenty-six Years of the Life of an Actor and Manager. 
 1847. 
 Williams, Jesse Lynch. The Vice of Playij^riting. Metropolitan 
 
 Magazine, 30:680-84. 
 Willis, N. P., Dramas of. (C. C. Felton.) North American, 51: 
 
 141-58. 
 ♦Winter, William. Brief Chronicles. Pt. 1 and Pt. 2. Dunlap 
 
 Society Publication, vols. 7-8, 1889; Pt. 3, vol. 10, 1890. 
 
 *Other Days: Being Chronicles and Memories of the Stage. 
 Moffat, Yard, 1908. 
 
 Theatrical Mismanagement. Harper's Weekly, 54: 9-10, 34. 
 Women Dramatists, Successful. Virginia Frame. Theatre, 6: 265- 
 
 66, ix. 
 Women Who Write Plays. L. A. Pierce. World To-day , 15: 725-31. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 391 
 
 Significant Books on the Deama 
 
 Issued since 1910, which bear directly on the work of the American 
 Dramatist. 
 
 Andrews, Charlton. The Drama To-day. Philadelphia: J. B. 
 
 Lippincott. 1913. 
 Beegle, Mary Porter, and Crawford, Jack R. Community Drama and 
 
 Pageantry. Yale University Press. 1916. 
 Belasco, David. Reminiscences. Hoarst^s Magazine, beginning 
 
 March, 1914. 
 Burton, Richard. The New American Drama. New York: Thomas 
 
 Y. Crowell Co. 1913. 
 Burton, Richard. How to See a Play. New York: The Macmillan 
 
 Co. 1914. 
 Caffin, Carohne. Vaudeville. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. 1914. 
 Cannon, Fanny. Writing and Selling a Play. New York: Henry 
 
 Holt & Co. 1915. 
 Chandler, F. W. Aspects of Modem Drama. New York: The 
 
 Macmillan Co. 1914. 
 Chaplin, Charles. Charlie Chaplin's Own Story. Indianapolis: 
 
 Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1916. 
 Cheney, Sheldon. The New Movement in the Theatre. New York: 
 
 Mitchell Kennerley. 1914. 
 Clark, Barrett H. The British and American Drama of To-day. 
 
 Outlines for their Study. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1915. 
 Crawford, Mary Caroline. The Romance of the American Theatre. 
 
 Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1913. 
 Dickinson, Thomas H. The Case of American Drama. Boston: 
 
 Houghton Mifflm Co. 1915. 
 Drama League of America. Study Course in American Drama. 
 
 Montrose J. Moses. 1916. 
 Eaton, Walter P. Plays and Players. Leaves from a Critic's 
 
 Scrapbook. Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd Co. 1916. 
 Frohman, Daniel, and Marcosson, Isaac F. Charles Frohman: Man- 
 ager & Man. With an Appreciation by Sir James M. Barrie. 
 
 New York: Harper & Bros. 1916. 
 Gillette, WiUiam. The Illusion of the First Time in Acting. Intro- 
 duction by George Arliss. New York: Columbia University 
 
 Dramatic Museum. 1915. Second Series, No. 1. 
 Goldman, Emma. The Social Significance of the Modem Drama. 
 
 Boston: R. G. Badger. 1914. 
 Grau, Robert. The Theatre of Science. New York. 1914. 
 
392 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Hamilton, Clayton. Studies in Stagecraft. New York: Henry 
 Holt & Co. 1914. 
 
 Henderson, Archibald. The Changing Drama. Contributions and 
 Tendencies. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1914. 
 
 Hornblow, Arthur. Training for the Stage. Foreword by David 
 Belasco. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1916. 
 
 Howard, Bronson. The Autobiography of a Play. With an Intro- 
 duction by Augustus Thomas. Columbia University Dramatic 
 Museum. First Series, No. II. 1914. 
 
 Hunt, Elizabeth R. The Play of To-day. Studies in Play-Structure 
 for the Student and the Theatre-Goer. New York: John 
 Lane Co. 1913. 
 
 Krows, Arthur Edwin. Play Production in America. With nu- 
 merous illustrations. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1916. 
 
 Lewisohn, Ludwig. The Modern Drama: An Essay in Interpreta- 
 tion. New York: B. W. Huebsch. 1915. 
 
 Lindsay, Vachell. The Art of the Moving Picture. New York: 
 Macmillan Co. 1915. 
 
 Mackaye, Percy. The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemp- 
 tion of Leisure. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. 1912. 
 
 Matthews, Brander. A Book about the Theatre. New York: 
 Charles Scribner's Sons. 1916. 
 
 Moderwell, Hiram Kelly. The Theatre of To-day. New York: 
 John Lane. 1914. 
 
 Munsterberg, Hugo. The Photo-play : A Psychological Study. New 
 York: D. Appleton & Co. 1916. 
 
 Nathan, George Jean. Another Book on the Theatre. New York: 
 Huebsch. 1915. 
 
 Pierce, J. A. 
 
 Ruhl, Arthur. Second Nights. People and Ideas of the Theatre 
 To-day. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1914. 
 
 Sargent, Epes Winthrop. Technique of the Photo-play. Moving 
 Picture World. 1916. 
 
 Shipman, Louis Evan. The True Adventures of a Play. New York: 
 Mitchell Kennerley. 1914. 
 
 Sothern, E. H. The Melancholy Tale of "Me." New York: 
 Charles Scribner's Sons. 1916. 
 
 Towse, John Ranken. Sixty Years of the Theatre: An Old Critic's 
 Memories. Illustrated. New York : Funk & Wagnalls Co. 1916. 
 
 Walsh, Townsend. Career of Dion Boucicault. New York: The 
 Dunlap Society. 1916. 
 
 Winter, William. The Wallet of Time. Containing Personal, Bio- 
 graphical, and Critical Reminiscences of the American Theatre. 
 2 vols. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. 1913. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 393 
 
 II 
 
 A Short List op Plats by American Dramatists 
 Published since 1910 
 
 [For further references, consult the Dramatic Index, and the Bulletin of Bibliog- 
 raphy, Pt. Ill, IV, vol. 9; Nos. 1-2, pp. 18-19; January, 1916;— pp. 44-45, April, 
 1916; Twentieth Century Dramas: English, Irish, American. Compiled by Flor- 
 ence E. Foshay.] 
 
 Anspacher, L. K. The Unchastened Woman. New York: Stokes. 
 
 1916. 
 Belasco, David. The Return of Peter Grimm. See M. J. Moses, 
 
 Representative Dramas by American Dramatists, Vol. III. 
 Brown, Alice. Children of Earth. New York: Macmillan. 1915. 
 Buchanan, Thompson. A Woman's Way. Drama League Series. 
 
 New York: Doubleday. 1915. 
 Bynner, Witter. Tiger. New York: Kennerley. 1913. 
 Crothers, Rachel. The Three of Us. New York: Samuel French. 
 Dickinson, Thomas H. Wisconsin Plays. New York: Huebsch. 
 
 1914. 
 Dickinson, Thomas H. Chief Contemporary Dramatists. Boston: 
 
 Houghton Mifflin. 1915. 
 Dix, Beulah Marie. Across the Border. New York: Holt. 1915. 
 Dreiser, Theodore. Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural. 
 
 New York: John Lane. 1916. 
 Elhs, Edith. Mary Jane's Pa. Boston: Little, Brown. 1916. 
 Gates, Eleanor. We Are Seven; also The Poor Little Rich Girl. 
 
 Arrow Publishing Co. 
 Gillette, Wilham. Electricity. Drama, November, 1913. 
 Hazelton, George C, and Benrimo. The Yellow Jacket. Indianap- 
 
 oUs: Bobbs-Merrill. 1913. 
 Kenyon, Charles. Kindling. Dramxi League Series. New York: 
 
 Doubleday. 1914. 
 Mackaye, Percy. A Thousand Years Ago. Dramu League Series. 
 
 New York: Doubleday. 1914. 
 Manners, J. Hartley. Happiness. New York: Dodd Mead. 1914. 
 Middleton, George. Embers (1911); Tradition (1913); Nowadays 
 
 (1914); Possession (1915); The Road Together (1916). New 
 
 York: Holt. 
 Moses, Montrose J. Representative Dramas by American Dram- 
 atists. 3 vols. New York: Dutton. 1917. 
 Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Van Zorn (1914); The Porcupine 
 
 (1915). New York: Macmillan. 
 Sheldon, Edwin. Romance (1914); The [Nigger. New York: 
 
 Macmillan. 
 
394 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Smith, Winchell. The Boomerang. New York: Samuel French. 
 
 1916. 
 Thomas, A. E. Her Husband's Wife. Drama League Series. New 
 
 York: Doubleday. 1914. 
 Walter, Eugene. The Easiest Way. Drama League Series. New 
 
 York: Doubleday. 1917. 
 Wentworth, Marion Craig. War Brides. New York: Century. 
 
 1915. 
 Wilde, Percival. Confessional (1916); Dawn (1915). New York: 
 
 Holt. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Actor, the, and his special r61e, 40 
 
 Actor, the American, 280; and the 
 American type, 50 
 
 Adams, Maude, and "The Maid of 
 Orleans," 244 
 
 Adaptations and the American 
 manager, 56 
 
 Ade, George, career of, 272, 273; 
 explains "The Sho-Gun," 273; 
 defines American drama, 273; 
 characteristics of his plays, 273; 
 his first plays, 273; and the 
 "movies," 217; mentioned, 305 
 
 Advertising, theatrical, deceptive, 
 38 
 
 Agricultural College Little Country 
 Theatre, 332 
 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, men- 
 tioned, 308; and "Judith of 
 Bethulia," 364 
 
 America and the foreign spirit, 9; 
 and the common clay, 10; and 
 the technique of Ibsen, 10; and 
 Maeterlinck, 10; and spiritual 
 struggle, 28 
 
 America's solution of social prob- 
 lems, 10 
 
 American acting, the golden era of, 
 and Belasco, 115 
 
 American and English life con- 
 trasted, 17 
 
 American character, the, 14; and 
 the play, 364 
 
 American drama, essentials of, 
 11-36; advance of, since 1910, 
 289; encouraged by the Drama 
 League, 290; increased interest 
 in the study of, 292 
 
 "American Dramas, Representa- 
 tive," a three- volume edition, 
 by Montrose J. Moses, 72 
 
 American Dramatists Club, 346 
 
 American girl, the theatrical, 86 
 American historical drama, 45 
 American idea, the, 88, 89 
 American life and action, 31; and 
 American drama, 12; distin- 
 guishing features of, 9; where is 
 the true, 92 
 American on the stage. The, 49 
 American spirit, the, in De Mille's 
 
 "Strongheart," 15, 16 
 American, the, in defeat, 14 
 American themes that persist, 47 
 American type, the, 75, 76 
 Americans characterized, 23 
 Ames, Winthrop, as director of the 
 New Theatre, 277; as a success- 
 ful manager, 286; his $10,000 
 prize competition, 304; men- 
 tioned, 326 
 Amusement concentration, 354 
 Andr6, Major, and the theatre, 
 
 43 
 Anspacher, Louis K., the excel- 
 lencies and defects in his "The 
 Unchastened Woman," 299, 300 
 Archer, William, and Granville 
 
 Barker, 276, 277 
 Aristotle on tragedy, 257; and the 
 
 ludicrous, 267, 268 
 Art and business, 279 
 Arvold, Alfred, and his ideas about 
 
 the Little Country Theatre, 332 
 Audience, interest of the five-cent, 
 
 211 
 Audiences and the open, 247 
 Authors, American, and foreign 
 
 literature, 59 
 Avery Gallery of Columbia Uni- 
 versity, 348 
 
 Baker, Professor George P., his 
 course in drama, 242 (note) ; his 
 
396 
 
 INDEX 
 
 "Workshop 47," 335, 336; and 
 the managers, 337 
 
 "Banker's Daughter, The," changes 
 in, 87 
 
 Barrett, Lawrence, and Howells, 64 
 
 Barrie, James M., and sentiment, 
 237; and the Comic Spirit, 264 
 
 Batcman, Mrs. Sidney F., and 
 "Self," 53 
 
 Beach, Rex, on the technique of 
 novels and stories, 301 
 
 Beers, H. A., quoted, 62 
 
 Belasco, David, and Heme, 94, 
 95, 116; and the psychology of 
 the switchboard. 111; early in- 
 fluences, 112; and Boucicault, 
 112; the painter, 112; analyzed, 
 112,113; the dramatist, 113; his 
 education, 113, 114; his tastes, 
 114; early years, 114; his par- 
 ents come to America, 114; in 
 San Francisco, 114; and the 
 priesthood, 114; as a stage man- 
 ager, 115, 126; re- writes Shake- 
 speare, 115; his first play, 115; 
 the struggling actor, 115; at 
 Lincoln College, 115; and the 
 golden era of American acting, 
 115; and E. A. Sothern, 115; 
 manager of the Baldwin Theatre, 
 San Francisco, 116; on the 
 Pacific slope, 116; becomes 
 Boucicault's secretary, 116; de- 
 cides to go to New York, 117; 
 engaged by the Mallorys, 117; 
 at the Madison Square Theatre, 
 117; shapes "The Young Mrs. 
 Winthrop," 118; and the quiet, 
 domestic play, 118; trains him- 
 self as a manager, 118, 119; his 
 published plays, 119 (note); his 
 early plays, 119; and the Pas- 
 sion Play, 120; career between 
 1890-95, 120; collaborates with 
 De Mille, 120; writes "Lord 
 Chumley" with De Mille, 120; 
 and Sophocles, 120 (note); cre- 
 ates a distinctive atmosphere, 
 121; his "The Heart of Mary- 
 land," 121; his "Zaza," 121; 
 diflaculty with the Trust, 121, 122; 
 
 his "stars," 122; hia collaborat- 
 ors, 122; his plays in collabora- 
 tion, 122, 123; his detailed manu- 
 scripts, 123; his "The Darling 
 of the Gods," 123; his special 
 successes (1909-11), 123 (note); 
 detail in the first act of "Zaza," 
 123; the barbaric note in his 
 plays, 124; and Sardou, 124; 
 and the switchboard, 125, 128; 
 his studio, 126; his "light-plots," 
 126; at rehearsal, 126, 128; his 
 theatricalism, 133; his position, 
 134; his effectiveness, 134; as a 
 reviser of plays, 136; writes, 
 with Charles Klein, "The Music 
 Master," 156; criticizes Little 
 Theatres, 337 
 
 Bernhardt, Sarah, and the moving- 
 picture, 217 
 
 Bidwell, Barnabas, and "The Mer- 
 cenary Match," 44 
 
 Bird, Robert Montgomery, plays 
 by, 66 (note); his "The Glad- 
 iator," 66 
 
 Bohemian Club, The, of San Fran- 
 cisco, 247 
 
 Boker, George Henry, his "Fran- 
 cesca da Rimini," 61, 71; hia 
 career, 67, 68; his plays, 68 
 (note); quoted on "Francesca 
 da Rimini," 68, 69; his method 
 of work, 68-70; criticized by 
 Richard Henry Stoddard, 70; 
 stage history of "Francesca da 
 Rimini," 70 (note) 
 
 "Books," comic opera, 253 
 
 Boucicault, Dion, 57; on the 
 American drama, 57; and Eng- 
 lish managers, 76 ; and audiences, 
 111; and the Madison Square 
 Theatre, 118; gathering facts 
 about, 346 
 
 Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, dramas 
 by, 45; mentioned, 291 
 
 British Army, the, and the Ameri- 
 can drama, 43 
 
 Broadhurst, George, as a "Play- 
 doctor," 297; his "Bought and 
 Paid For," 298; his " Man of the 
 Hour," 299 
 
INDEX 
 
 397 
 
 Brougham, John, and New York 
 in 1842, 53; and W. E. Buxton, 
 55 
 
 Brown, Alice, and "Children of 
 Earth," the prize play, 304; com- 
 pared with "The Great Divide," 
 304 
 
 Browning's "A Blot in the 'Scutch- 
 eon," 235 
 
 Burgoyne, General, as a dramatist, 
 43 
 
 Burnett, Mrs. F. H., 161, 166 
 
 Butcher, Professor, and tragedy, 
 258; and the human, 267 
 
 Cardboard play, the, 154 
 
 Carleton's "Memnon," 27 
 
 Chanfrau's Mose, 52 
 
 Character, sense of, 169 
 
 "Chimmie Fadden" and other 
 modern types, 52 
 
 Closet-drama, our literary and, 
 59-72 
 
 Closet-dramatist, the, 62 
 
 Coburn Players, the, 246 
 
 Cohan, George M., 272; his plays, 
 253; mentioned, 305 
 
 Coleridge and a point of relative 
 rest, 232; and drama, 234; on 
 the drama, 235 
 
 College drama, 242, 243 (note) 
 
 College of the City of New York, 
 drama in the, 242 
 
 Columbian Celebration Company 
 and Steele Mackaye, 151 
 
 Comedy, and tragedy, 255; vs. 
 tragedy, 260, 263; the tragic in, 
 261; examples of, 261; poor 
 analysis of, 263 ; and tragedy de- 
 fined by Matthews, 266; and 
 the Greeks, 267, 268; and Shake- 
 speare, 268; need for a book on, 
 269; defined by Meredith, 269, 
 270; bibliography of, 275 
 
 Comedy of manners, 343 
 
 Comic emotion defined, 267 
 
 Comic opera, 252 
 
 Comic poet, 267 
 
 Comic Spirit, the, 263, 264, 266, 
 275; and Barrie, 264; and 
 Percy Mackaye, 264; and fun, 
 
 265; in literature, 265; and 
 
 Moli^re, 268 
 Communal aspects of the theatre, 2 
 Condition, social, in drama, 7 
 Congreve on humor, 268 
 Conrad, Robert T., 66; his "Jack 
 
 Cade," 27, 64, 60 
 "Contrast, The," 49 
 Courtney, W. L., on tragedy, 257 
 Craig, Gordon, and the theatre, 
 
 133 
 Creole drama mentioned, 376 
 Crinkle, Njon, and Steele Mackaye, 
 
 145, 149 
 Critic and dramatist, 36 
 Critic, dramatic, work of the, 368, 
 
 369, 371 
 Critical and creative faculties, the, 
 
 29 
 Criticism, dramatic, need for, 362 
 Criticism, theory of, 369 
 Critics of the theatre, 2 
 Crothers, Rachel, and "The Three 
 
 of Us," 83; and her plays, 376 
 Crowd, the, and drama, 3 ; and the 
 
 dramatist, 6 
 
 Daly, Augustin, activity of, 56, 117; 
 library of, 344; and the Ameri- 
 can drama, 77 ; on the American 
 drama, 57 
 
 Dartmouth College and dramatics, 
 334 
 
 Davis, Owen, 190; quoted, 31, 32; 
 evolution of, 32; situation in 
 plays of, 191; career of , 191, 192; 
 attitude toward melodrama, 192; 
 on melodrama, 192-194; "Con- 
 vict 999," 194; plays of, 194, 
 and note 
 
 Davis, Richard Harding, "Soldiers 
 of Fortune " quoted, 17 
 
 Dazey, C. T., "In Old Kentucky," 
 37 
 
 Definitions, need of new, in drama, 
 274 
 
 Delsarte, Frangois, and Steele Mac- 
 kaye, 142 
 
 De Mille, Henry, and the Madison 
 Square Theatre, 118; as a reader 
 of plays, 118, 136; collaborates 
 
398 
 
 INDEX 
 
 with Belasco, 120; association 
 with Mackaye, 135 
 
 De Mille, William, 137; and Percy 
 Mackaye, 136, 137; his plays 
 and his position, 303 
 
 Destiny, modern conception of, 5 
 
 Dialogue, sense of, 169 
 
 Dickinson, Thomas H., and the 
 Wisconsin Plays, quoted, 314; 
 mentioned, 324; and the one- 
 act play, 326 
 
 Dime-novel period in America, 188 
 
 Disintegration and regeneration of 
 the theatre, 352-366 
 
 Drama, as a social force, 1-10; 
 growth of, 3; philosophical 
 growth of, 3; modern social, and 
 its moral purpose, 4; and clash 
 of wills, 4; the social, 5, 6; 
 social drama and the critics, 6; 
 and action, 7; and the "little 
 moments," 18, 234; factors con- 
 sidered in, 18; and dramatic 
 form, 18; defined, 19-21; essen- 
 tial demand of, 21 ; and literature 
 of national fibre, 24; of condi- 
 tion, 24; and the reportorial 
 instinct, 26; English, and literary 
 standards, 28; trend of, from 
 1750 to 1870, 37; Quaker feeling 
 against, 42 ; and the literary atti- 
 tude, 61 ; foreign, the formula of, 
 86; externalizing, 154, 155; and 
 music, relation of, 187; and 
 the poet, 228, 229, 236; and 
 quotidian hapE>enings, 231; and 
 passion, 232; and indefiniteness, 
 232; and the English poets, 233; 
 and opera, 235; and life, 237; 
 and unseen forces, 238; status 
 of present day, 241; imitation 
 of ancient attitude in modern, 
 244; civic expressions of, 248, 
 249; and education, 249; and 
 old moulds, 251; present day 
 modifications in, 251, 252; and 
 the university, 265; commercial 
 regulation of, 279; characteris- 
 tics of modern, 289 ; books on the, 
 and the auctioneer, 340; original 
 sources in, 346; gaps in the 
 
 study of, 346; transitory char- 
 acter of, 347; rare books on the 
 349; university attitude toward 
 350; word national applied to 
 350, 351; comparative aspects 
 of, 351; present changes in, 356 
 critiques on the, 361, 362; im- 
 proving attitude toward, 363 
 and literature, 365; bettering 
 the, 365 
 
 Drama, American, a subdivision of 
 English drama, 11; defined by 
 American dramatists, 12; prob- 
 lem of defining, 12; and democ- 
 racy, 13; and "uplift," 13; and 
 the "square deal," 13; and his- 
 tory, 23; imitative, 27; historical 
 trend of, 28; early, 44; value 
 of, before 1870, 58; interest of 
 literary men in, 65; existence of 
 an, 74; before 1870, 75; and 
 the managers, 76; a market for, 
 89; neglect of, 91; Poe on, 227; 
 forms of, 251-275; Ade defines, 
 273; some of the best modern, 
 305; readable, 363; and Idea, 
 377; dramatic critic's duty to- 
 ward, 378 
 
 Drama, poetic, in America, 91; 
 should it be dramatized? 227- 
 238 ; has no monopoly on poetry, 
 228; and the poet, 228; is drama 
 twice removed, 229; vs. drama, 
 232; characteristics of, 233; ex- 
 amples of the, 235; material for, 
 237; misnomer of the, 238 
 
 Drama, the realistic, and James A. 
 Heme, 90 
 
 Drama League, positive contribu- 
 tion of the, 290; aids "Kind- 
 ling," 295; referred to, 321 
 
 Dramatic conventionalities, 83 
 
 Dramatic critic, lack of authority, 
 368; work of the, 369, 370; re- 
 habilitation of the, 370, 371; the 
 dramatist as, 371; limitations of 
 the, 372 > 
 
 Dramatic criticism, 367; and the 
 personal element, 375; rehabili-" 
 tation of, 375 
 
 Dramatic critics removed, 374 
 
INDEX 
 
 399 
 
 Dramatic curve, 20 
 
 Dramatic history, revelations of, 22 
 
 Dramatic library, need for a, 341- 
 351; reasons for need, 342; re- 
 quirements of a, 347, 348; and 
 New York city, 349 ; attempts to 
 found a, 349; phases of a, 350; 
 the spirit in founding a, 351 
 
 Dramatic writing, the first Ameri- 
 can, 42 
 
 Dramatics, Educational, 322 
 
 Dramatist, the American, and ex- 
 ternal stage craft, 30; and the 
 New Theatre, 282; the new, 
 293, 302, 303; the defects of the, 
 294; technique of, influenced by 
 the moving-picture, 301; new 
 dramatists mentioned, 302 
 
 Dramatist, the real, 1 ; and the life 
 of his time, 4; three essential ob- 
 jects of the, 7; narrow vision of 
 the social, 7; his trade, 35; high 
 speed of the, 172; what consti- 
 tutes a, 296 
 
 Dramatists, Southern, of the old 
 regime, 60; some literary, 67 
 
 Dramatization, 254; and the novel 
 form, 255; defects of, 20 
 
 Dramatizations and audiences, 254, 
 255 
 
 Dreiser, Theodore, and his "Plays 
 of the Natural and Super- 
 natural," 304 
 
 Drew, Mrs. John, and scenic real- 
 ism, 112 
 
 Dundreary, and other built parts, 40 
 
 Dunlap, William, influenced by 
 Kotzebue, 47; his "Andr6," 46; 
 his plays,49 (note) ; account, 48,49 
 
 Dunsany, Lord, mentioned, 323, 
 324 
 
 Eaton, W. P., comments on Miss 
 Farrar as a "movie star," 220; 
 comments on A. E. Thomas's 
 "Her Husband's Wife," 302; as 
 a dramatic critic, 372 
 
 Electrical "plots," 127 
 
 Electrician, the, and the theatre, 
 125; at rehearsal, 127; behind 
 the scenes, 128. 129 
 
 Eliot, George, and Steele Mackaye, 
 
 144 
 Emerson and Ibsen, 233 
 
 Fabian socialism and drama, 315 
 
 "Famous Actor-Families in Amer- 
 ica" and Galton's law, 135 
 
 Farrar, Geraldine, and the "mov- 
 ies," 220 
 
 Fiske, Mrs., and her plays, 376 
 (note) 
 
 Fitch, Clyde, "The City," 156, 
 182; at rehearsal, 157; and Au- 
 gustus Thomas in comparison, 
 159; his local sense, 169-185; 
 and Pinero, 170, 171; plays of, 
 171, 172 (note); "Knighting of 
 the Twins," 172; as realist, ro- 
 manticist, and sentimentalist, 
 173; as feminist, 173; his tem- 
 perament, 173; his use of the 
 unusual, 173; "The Smart Set," 
 173; and Idea, 174; on drama, 
 174; and foreign drama, 175; 
 and imitation, 175; a New York 
 dramatist, 175, 176, 181, 182, 
 183; characteristics of his plays, 
 176; "The Climbers," 177; va- 
 ried types of his dramas, 177; 
 his feminism and his characteris- 
 tics, 177; cleverness and similar- 
 ity of his plays, 178; method of 
 his humor, 178; "Captain Jinks 
 of the Horse Marines," 178; his 
 last trip abroad, 179, 180; his 
 limitations, 179; his technique, 
 180; his roles, 180, 181; his 
 published plays, 181; his method 
 of work, 181, 183, 184; bibliog- 
 raphy, 181 (note), 182; his per- 
 sonality, 182; his critics, 182; 
 characteristics summarized, 182; 
 his invention, 183; his ethics, 
 183; his development, 184; the 
 future, 184, 185; bibliographical, 
 185; and the poetry of ordinary 
 existence, 238; referred to, 292; 
 the Fitch Bequest, 292; need of 
 a Fitch Memorial, 347 
 
 Folk-drama, 247 
 
 Footlights, 132 
 
400 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Forbes, James, and "The Chorus 
 
 Lady," 303 
 Ford, Paul Leicester, quoted, 44; 
 
 referred to, 46 
 Forrest, Edwin, and the American 
 
 stage, 59; encourages American 
 
 dramatists, 66 
 "Francesca da Rimini" on the 
 
 stage, 70, 71 (note); Boker's 
 
 play criticized, 71 
 Francke, Kuno, ciuoted, 3; and 
 
 modern Germany, 6 
 Frohman, Charles, and Daniel 
 
 Frohman, 57; his position, 357 
 Frohman, Daniel, quoted, 23 
 
 Galesburg, 111., Prairie Playhouse, 
 331 
 
 Galsworthy's "Strife," 240, 284; 
 his social conscience and his 
 plays, 295; his irony, 295 
 
 Garland, Ilamlin, and locality, 12; 
 on Mrs. Heme, 101 
 
 Gates, Eleanor, and "The Poor 
 Little Rich Girl," 306 
 
 George, Henry, on "Shore Acres," 
 97 
 
 Germans, the, and comedy, 269 
 
 Germany's influence on American 
 drama, 47 
 
 Gilbert, W. S., and opera librettists, 
 251; and his "books," 253 
 
 "Gilded Age, The," dramatized, 
 51 
 
 Gillette, William, 164-168; his play 
 of purpose, 164; his youthful 
 career, 164; his ability to amuse, 
 164; and the well-made play, 
 164; "The Private Secretary," 
 165, 166; his early career, 165; 
 "Sherlock Holmes," 165; "Held 
 By the Enemy," 166; depend- 
 ence on French and German, 166 
 and note; his early dramatic 
 ventures, 166; his original plays, 
 166; "Electricity," 166; "Secret 
 Service," 167; adaptation of 
 Bernstein's "Samson," 167; in 
 Barrie's "The Admirable Crich- 
 ton," 167; his sentiment, 167; 
 green lights and cigars, 167; 
 
 his caution, 167; and melodrama, 
 168; his published plays, 168 
 
 "Girl of the Golden West, The," as 
 an opera, 123 (note) 
 
 Goodman, Edward, of the Wash- 
 ington Square Players, quoted, 
 313 
 
 Greek, the, out-of-doors, 247 
 
 Greeks and comedy, the, 267; and 
 tragedy, 261; as dramatic critics, 
 370 
 
 Greet, Ben, 242, 246 
 
 Gummere, Professor, and the vocero, 
 247 
 
 Guthrie, Dr., defines comic emo- 
 tion, 267 
 
 Hackett, James H., and American 
 characterizations, 50, 51; and 
 "Yankee" Hill, 50 
 
 Hallam, William, the first road or- 
 ganizer, 42 
 
 Hamilton, Clayton, and the theory 
 of the theatre, 6 
 
 Hapgood, Norman, on Gillette's 
 acting, 165 
 
 Harrigan, Edward, 271; and Hart, 
 271; their careers, 271 ; plays by, 
 272 (note) 
 
 Harrison, Bertram, and the North- 
 ampton Municipal Theatre, 333 
 
 Hauptmann mentioned, 4 
 
 "Hazel Kirke," 147 
 
 Hazleton's "The Yellow Jacket," 
 305 
 
 Heniger, Mrs. Minnie Herts, 322 
 
 Heme, James A., and the American 
 soil, 30; and his compromise, 30; 
 and realism, 31 ; and the realistic 
 drama, 90; his original position, 
 91; his faults, 91, 92; his excel- 
 lence, 92; hisclarity of vision, 92; 
 his early life, 93; his sense of 
 modern treatment, 93; his par- 
 entage, 93; joins the theatre, 93; 
 his first appearance, 93; supports 
 Lucille Western, 94; early career 
 as an actor, 94; in San Francisco, 
 94; his Dickens' characters, 94; 
 his first marriage, 94; and 
 Belasco, 94, 95; bis secood mar- 
 
INDEX 
 
 401 
 
 riage, 95; and the Boucioault 
 drama, 96; his acting in "Shore 
 Acres," 96; Henry George's 
 letter on "Shore Acres," 97; his 
 plots, 97; "Hearts of Oak," 98; 
 and the commonplace, 98; 
 "Drifting Apart," 98; "The 
 Rev. Griffith Davenport," 98, 
 99, 100; historical studies, 99; 
 critic of his own plays, 100; 
 quoted on art, 100; his intellec- 
 tual growth, 101; "Margaret 
 Fleming," 101; his two types, 
 102; his literary recognition, 
 102; dedication of "Shore 
 Acres," 102 (note); "Margaret 
 Fleming" on the stage, 102, 103; 
 forsakes stark realism, 103; as 
 stage manager, 103, 104; at 
 "Ashmont," 104; leaves Boston, 
 104; "Heme Oaks," 104; char- 
 acteristics and tastes, 104; sup- 
 ports Henry George, 104, 107; 
 the man described, 105; his 
 family, 105; his children, 105; 
 a man of the theatre, 106; stand 
 against the theatrical syndicate, 
 106 (note) ; his opinion of art and 
 the theatre, 106, 107; his belief, 
 106, 107, 108; praised by Archer, 
 108; his style, 108; quoted, as 
 example of descriptive powers, 
 
 108, 109; bibliographical note, 
 
 109, 110; description of Maine, 
 109; list of plays by, 110; and 
 Belasco, 116; and art, 233; 
 "Margaret Fleming," 234, 235; 
 manuscripts burned, 347 
 
 Heme, Mrs. James A. (Katherine 
 Corcoran), 95; her personal in- 
 spiration, 96; as Mary Miller, 
 98; Hamlin Garland's opinion of, 
 99; her reading, 101; described 
 by Hamlin Garland, 101 
 
 Heron, Matilda, and "Camille," 56 
 
 Herrick, Professor Robert, his 
 course in drama, 242 
 
 Hill, "Yankee," 50 
 
 Historical personages and drama, 
 46 
 
 Historical perspective, value of, 58 
 
 Hobbes on laughter, 267 
 
 Holland, Joseph, and Morrell's 
 "Life of Holland," 345 
 
 Hornblow, Arthur, mentioned, 377 
 (note) 
 
 Horniman, Miss, and the Manches- 
 ter Theatre cited, 311, 312, 
 314 
 
 Howard, Bronson, defines the 
 American drama, 12; as an 
 American, 30; details, 73-89; 
 estimate of, 73; broad point of 
 view, 73; lack of literary flavor, 
 74; position in 1870, 74; and 
 modern technique, 74, 75; title 
 of Dean of the American drama, 
 74, 88; his influences, 76; his 
 ancestry, 77, 78; his father, 78; 
 his name, 78; his eye-sight, 79; 
 influenced by Bayard Taylor, 79 ; 
 first literary inclinations, 79 ; life 
 in Detroit, 79; discusses drama 
 before the Detroit Prismatic 
 Club, 79; prepares for Yale, 79; 
 Harvard University address, 79, 
 87; "Fantine," 80; on dramatic 
 craftsmansliip, 80; a "skeleton" 
 play, 80, 81; start as a play- 
 wright, 81; his part in the Civil 
 War, 81 ; his newspaper work, 81 ; 
 as a journalist, 81, 82; meets 
 Charles Wyndham, 82; marries 
 Miss Wyndham, 82; foreign 
 models, 82; on theatrical con- 
 vention, 83, 84; his feminine 
 brightness, 84; "The Henri- 
 etta," 84; "Baron Rudolph," 84; 
 "Moorcroft," 84; and American 
 themes, 84; "The Young Mrs. 
 Winthrop," 84; previousness in 
 themes, 85; accused of plagiar- 
 ism, 85; his repartee, 86; society 
 in his drama, 86, 87; as a crafts- 
 man, 87; illustrates the laws of 
 drama, 87, 88; the younger 
 generation, 88; copyright, 88; 
 founds the Dramatists Club, 88; 
 bibliographical list of his plays, 
 89 (note) ; and David Belasco, 
 118; the Howard Bequests, 292; 
 his Hbrary, 343, 344 
 
402 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Howe, Frederic C, on the moving- 
 picture as a liberalizing force, 223 
 
 HoweUs, W. D., and "The Gilded 
 Age," 52; his farces, 63; plays on 
 the stage, 64; and James and 
 Garland, their theoretical views 
 of drama, 64; his influence in 
 literature, 90; quoted, 91; men- 
 tioned, 308 
 
 Hoyt, Charles, his satire, 271; 
 plays of, 271 ; his weakness, 271 
 
 Hudson-Fulton celebration, 245 
 
 Hull House Players, The, 321, 322, 
 327 
 
 Hume, Sam, and his work, 323, 328; 
 quoted, 329, 330 
 
 Humor, American, 255, 270 
 
 Humor and Congreve, 268 
 
 Humor in American dramatists, 275 
 
 Humor vs. wit, 270 
 
 Humorists, American, 256; South- 
 ern, 51 
 
 Huneker, James, the critic, 369 
 
 Hunter, Robert, 46 
 
 "Hurricanes," 82 
 
 Ibsen, mentioned, 4; and women, 
 8; optimism in his pessimism, 8; 
 and Tolstoy, 29; ahead of his 
 time, 83; and Emerson, 233; 
 and the commonplace, 234; and 
 tragedy, 259 
 Idea and the American drama, 25 
 Importations, continental, 17 
 Indian plays, 44, 45 
 Insurgency, theatrical, 354 
 Irving, Washington, and John 
 Howard Payne, 65, 66 
 
 "Jack Cade" and Forrest, 66 
 
 James, Henry, and drama, 63, 64, 
 308 
 
 Jefferson, Joseph, and his ambition, 
 165 
 
 Johnston, Charles, defines Ameri- 
 can humor, 270 
 
 Jones, Henry Arthur, why an Eng- 
 lish dramatist, 11; attitude to- 
 ward literature and drama, 64, 
 65; on realism, 236; as a dra- 
 matic critic, 372 
 
 Jones, J. S., "The People's Lawyer" 
 
 quoted, 50 
 Jones, Robert Edmond, 328 
 
 Kant on laughter, 269 
 
 Katharsis, the, 257 
 
 Keene, Laura, 56 
 
 Kennedy, John P., dramatization of 
 his novel, " Horse-shoe Robin- 
 son," 50 
 
 Kenyon, Charles, and "Kindling," 
 295; the Drama League and, 
 295; his "Husband and Wife," 
 295 
 
 Kester, Paul, and "Don Quixote," 
 264 
 
 Kinetoscope, theatre, 200-214; 
 management of the, 200; prob- 
 lem of the, 200, 202; manager of, 
 201; acting, 201; length of films, 
 201; audiences, 202; institu- 
 tional use of the, 202; a wise 
 manager, 204; economics of the, 
 204; defects in the performances, 
 204; the "chaser," 205; the 
 press-agent, 205; the Trust, 205; 
 the Union, 206; timely element 
 in films, 206; reporter, 206; Pas- 
 sion Play, 206; the film "route," 
 207; French actors, 207; con- 
 ditions with American drama- 
 tists, 207; French dramatists, 
 207, 208; copyright, 208; "The 
 Music Master," 208; eye-strain, 
 210; improvements, 210; dangers 
 in taking pictures, 211; drama- 
 tizations, 212; pantomime, 212 
 
 Klein, Charles, "The Lion and the 
 Mouse," 11; mentioned, 28; his 
 plays, 33; quoted regarding 
 American drama, 33-35; an in- 
 dependent manager, 357; plays 
 published, 292; the Klein memo- 
 rial, 293; and Broadhurst, 298 
 
 Koch, Professor Frederick H., the 
 work of, 331; his belief in com- 
 munity playwriting, 331, 332 
 
 Kotzebue, 47 
 
 Kremer, Theodore, melodramatic 
 formula of, 195, 196; the Clyde 
 Fitch of melodrama, 196 
 
INDEX 
 
 403 
 
 Lamb, Charles, on tragedy, 231 ; on 
 comedy, 269 
 
 Laughter, value of, 267; defined by 
 Hobbes, 267; defined by Kant, 
 269 
 
 Leacock, John, author of "The Fall 
 of British Tyranny," 291 
 
 Le Bon and the crowd, 239, 240 
 
 Legitimate drama, the term, 190 
 
 Leland, C. G. (Hans Breitman), on 
 George H. Boker, 67 
 
 "Les Miserables," first American 
 edition of, 79 
 
 Lewisohn, The Misses, and the 
 Neighborhood Playhouse, 322, 
 323 
 
 Library, a general, and the drama, 
 343 ; private, and the drama, 344 ; 
 specializing in drama, 345 
 
 Librettists, popular, 252 
 
 Lighting, stage, use and misuse of, 
 132, 133 
 
 literary and closet-drama, our, 
 59-72 
 
 Literature and drama, 61, 62, 308, 
 365; and the soil, 90; individ- 
 ualistic and collectivistic tend- 
 encies in, 3; vitality and na- 
 tionality in, 5 
 
 Literature, American, and Ameri- 
 can characteristics, 51; Henry 
 Arthur Jones on, and drama, 65 
 
 Little Theatres, the craze for, 309- 
 340; number and extent, 309; 
 geographical distribution, 309, 
 325; revolt of, and intentions, 
 310, 318; book by Constance 
 D'Arcy Mackay, 310; mis- 
 placed enthusiasm, 311; move- 
 ment compared with the British 
 system of Little Theatres, 311, 
 312, 315; the aloofness of some 
 playwrights of the, 312, 313; 
 Washington Square Players' Di- 
 rector quoted, 313; Thomas H. 
 Dickinson and the Wisconsin 
 Dramatic Society, 314; Prov- 
 incetown Players, 314; tumult 
 of experimentation in, 316; a 
 Director quoted as to purposes of, 
 316; criticized by managers, 317; 
 
 their failure and their hope, 318, 
 327; early signs of revolt in, 318; 
 self-conscious efforts, 319; Bos- 
 ton and Philadelphia, 319; the 
 philosophy of the movement, 
 319; Washington Square Players 
 cited, 319, 320; the laboratory 
 idea, 320, 321; the Pittsburgh 
 School of Technology's Depart- 
 ment of Drama, 320; Hull House 
 Players, 321, 322; Neighborhood 
 Playhouse, 322, 323; Portman- 
 teau Theatre, 324, 325; the one- 
 act play and the, 325, 326; the 
 playwright and the, 327; Hume 
 and the Detroit Arts and Crafts 
 Theatre, 328, 329; borrowed re- 
 pertoires in the, 329, 330; prizes 
 offered by, 330; Prairie Play- 
 house, 331; Professor Koch and 
 the University of North Dakota, 
 331, 332; Little Country Theatre, 
 of Fargo, 332; educational idea 
 of, 332; Northampton Municipal 
 Theatre, 332; the danger of the 
 amateur in, 334; University in- 
 terest in, 334, 335; dramatics at 
 Dartmouth and at Oberlin, 334; 
 Professor Baker and, 335, 336; 
 dramatics at Yale, Harvard, 
 Columbia, 336; the pioneer work 
 of, 337; antagonism against, 337; 
 Belasco on, 337, the immediate 
 problem of, 338, 339; books and 
 pamphlets on, 339, 340 
 
 Local, danger of the, 179 
 
 Local sense, and Clyde Fitch, 169- 
 185 
 
 Local touches, 53 
 
 Locality, and life, 25; and the 
 drama, 362, 363; sense of, and 
 the American dramatist, 175 
 
 Logan, C. A., and "Yankee Land," 
 51 
 
 Longfellow, dramas, 63; opinion of 
 drama, 63; on poetry and prose, 
 63 
 
 "Lord Chumley," 120 
 
 Lowell and the mystic, 232 
 
 Lyceum Theatre and Steele Mac- 
 kaye, 150 
 
404 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Macdowell Drama Fellowship, 242 
 (note) 
 
 Mackay, Constance D'Arcy, writes 
 on Little Theatres, 310 
 
 Mackaye, Percy, "Sappho and 
 Phaon" and "Mater," 11; "The 
 Scarecrow," 236; "The Canter- 
 bury Pilgrims," 244; and the 
 Comic Spirit, 264; and the com- 
 mercial manager, 280; and 
 drama, 364; and his father, 135, 
 153; and W. C. De Mille, 136, 
 137; and Stephen PhUlips, 137; 
 humor and cynicism, 138; the 
 poet, 138; biographical data, 138 
 (note); plays, 138 (note), 139; 
 ideas on democracy, 138, 141; 
 his lectures, 139; critic of the 
 theatre, 139, 140, 141; his work 
 from 1910-1917, 153, 307; his 
 improvement in technique, 307; 
 "A Thousand Years Ago," 307; 
 "The Canterbury Pilgrims" as a 
 libretto, 307; his "Civic Thea- 
 tre "mentioned, 310 
 
 Mackaye, Steele, and his son, 135- 
 153; and De Mille, 135; con- 
 temporary dramatic authorship, 
 137; early record of, 141; family 
 of, 141; lectures on Delsarte, 142; 
 the Civil War, 142; on the actor, 
 142; exponent of Delsarte, 142, 
 143; Edwin Forrest, 143; as 
 manager, 143; his rashness, 143, 
 144; collaborates with Tom 
 Taylor, 144; begins to dramatize 
 "Silas Marner," 144; career as 
 actor, 144; as Hamlet, 145; his 
 dramatic training, 145 ; his plays, 
 145, 146; supported by Njnm 
 Crinkle, 145, 149; his influences, 
 146 ; ' ' Won at Last ' ' analyzed by 
 acts, 146; the theatre of his day, 
 146; and the Mallorys, 147; 
 "Hazel Kirke," 147; opinion of 
 the dramatist, 147, 148; the phi- 
 losopher, 148, 150; theatricalism, 
 148, 149; origin of "Anarchy," 
 149; opinions on capital and 
 labor, 149; on democracy, 149; 
 at the Lyceum Theatre, 150; 
 
 Columbian spectacle analyzed, 
 150, 151; Spectatorium ana- 
 lyzed, 151, 152; and his son, 153; 
 family, 153 (note) 
 
 Macready and sensationalism, 190 
 
 Madison Square Theatre, and Be- 
 lasco, 117; and Henry C. De 
 Mille, 118; "milk and water" 
 drama of, 118; the theatre, 118, 
 136 ; Daniel Frohman and Frank- 
 lin Sargent, 136 
 
 Maeterlinck, Maurice, and Lamb, 
 231; unseen forces, 231; on the 
 unexpressed, 235; and the 
 Greeks, 259; quoted on the 
 tragical in daily life, 259; on the 
 tragic spirit, 260; "The Life of 
 the Bee," 260; "The Blind," 260 
 
 Mallory Brothers, the, engage Be- 
 lasco, 117; criticized, 136, 147 
 
 Manager, the theatrical, and reno- 
 vation, 40, 41 
 
 Managerial prejudice, former, and 
 American drama, 22 
 
 Managers, the American, 56; Eng- 
 lish, and'Boucicault, 76 
 
 Manners, Hartley, "The House 
 Next Door," and "Peg O' My 
 Heart," 303 
 
 Mansfield, Richard, his roles, 40; 
 and Moli^re, 265 
 
 Matthews, Brander, quoted, 49, 60, 
 61, 62; and the closet-drama, 72; 
 his course in drama, 230 (note); 
 on the physical outlines of the 
 theatre, 243 ; defines comedy and 
 tragedy, 266; and his work in 
 drama at Columbia University, 
 336 
 
 Mechanical drama, 203 
 
 Melodrama, and human appeal, 32; 
 changes in American, 32; con- 
 cerning, 186-199; early types, 
 186; the beginning of, 186; the 
 term, 186, 188; and romanticism, 
 187; advertising, 187; and the 
 Radcliffe School, 188; in Eng- 
 land, 188; Schlegel on, 188; Be- 
 lasco, 189, 198; realism, 189; 
 Walkley on, 189; miracle plays, 
 189; characteristics of, 189; 
 
INDEX 
 
 405 
 
 reaction in, 190; "Macbeth," 
 190; wild species, 190; the hair- 
 line of, 191; Boucicault, 191; 
 some famous, 191; accentuation 
 in, 191; Owen Davis on, 192- 
 194; Owen Davis on audiences, 
 194; writers of, 196 (note); 
 how to write, 197; conventions 
 of, 197; bibliography, 198, 199 
 Meredith, George, on comedy, 269 
 "Metamora" and Forrest, 66 
 Middleton, George, mentioned, 323 
 "Military Glory of Great Britain, 
 
 The," referred to, 291 
 Mitchell, Langdon, "The New 
 York Idea," 55; "Becky Sharp," 
 283 
 Moli^re and the Comic Spirit, 268 
 Moody, William Vaughn, and "The 
 Great Divide," 11, 24, 236, 377; 
 his plays, 230; compared with 
 "Children of Earth," 304 
 Morality, imported, 26 
 Moving-picture, educational possi- 
 bilities of the, 211; harmful to 
 the theatre, 214; progress of, 
 since 1910, 215; encroachments 
 on legitimate theatre, 216; struc- 
 ture of the, 217, 218; the Cen- 
 sorship Board, 217, 223; the 
 actors and managers and plays 
 in the, 218; influence on acting, 
 219; "Treasure Island" as 
 a, 219; "Twenty Thousand 
 Leagues under the Sea " as a, 219; 
 "Shenandoah" as a, 220; "The 
 Birth of a Nation" as a, 220; 
 Geraldine Farrar, the Metro- 
 politan Opera, and the, 220; 
 D'Annunzio's "Cabiria" as a, 
 221; the rise of prices, 221; sta- 
 tistics of the, 221 ; what the actor 
 loses, 221; limitations of the, 
 222; "Pierrot the Prodigal" and 
 pantomime, 222; waste in the, 
 222; the manufacturer's aim, 
 223 ; Brian Hooker analyzes the, 
 223; curi'ent events and the, 223; 
 Frederic C. Howe on the, as a 
 liberalizing force, 223; use of, in 
 the Great War, 224; democratic 
 
 grip of the, 224; limitations in 
 "Peter Pan" and "The Poor 
 Little Rich Girl," 224; actors 
 whose technique suits the, 224; 
 Otis Skinner and the, 224, 225; 
 George Bernard Shaw and the, 
 225, 226; bibliographical refer- 
 ences on the, 226 
 
 Mowatt, Mrs., and contemporary 
 drama, 53; "Fashion," 53 
 
 ' ' Muck-raking ' ' and ' ' star-gaz- 
 ing," 8 
 
 Municipal Theatre, of Northamp- 
 ton, Mass., 333 
 
 Music and drama, relation of, 187 
 
 Musical comedy and George V. 
 Hobart, 252 
 
 National Theatre, what is a, 284 
 Nationality and fundamental dra- 
 matic principles, 5 
 Negro in American Drama, 46 
 Neighborhood Playhouse, The, 322, 
 
 323 
 Newspaper dramatists, 377 
 New Theatre, over-size of, 111; re- 
 sults of, 276; idea of, 276; open- 
 ing of, 277; concern of, 277 
 object of the Directors, 277 
 erection of, 278; name of, 278 
 prejudice against, 281; initial 
 period, 282; National Art 
 Theatre Society and its Board, 
 282; position in theatrical ac- 
 tivity, 282; and the American 
 dramatist, 282; and English 
 actors, 283; its "stars," 283; in- 
 tellectual ground for a, 283, 284; 
 mistakes of the, 284; repertory, 
 284; and the people, 284; hia- 
 tus, 285; building designed by 
 Conried, 285; first year, 285; 
 problems of, 286; new building, 
 286; financial loss, 286; situa- 
 tion, 286 (note); Literary Di- 
 rector, 287 Shakespearean pro- 
 ductions, 287; other produc- 
 tions, 287; referred to, 290 
 New York, in 1842, 53; theatres in 
 1882, 112; theatrical conditions 
 in 1882, 117; as a theatre centre 
 
406 
 
 INDEX 
 
 285; Public Library and drama, 
 345 
 
 Nickelodeon, audiences, 203; press- 
 agent of, 205; problems of the 
 manager, 209; stage-managing, 
 213; inspection of managers, 
 209; and the Children's Court, 
 211; the police, 211; perform- 
 ance of "Macbeth," 213; police 
 on Shakespeare, 213 
 
 North Dakota, University of, and 
 drama, 326, 331, 332; Professor 
 Koch's activities, 331 
 
 Novel-writing vs. playwriting, 170, 
 171 
 
 One-act play, its practice in Little 
 Theatres, 326 
 
 Page, Curtis Hidden, translation of 
 Moli^re, 265 
 
 Pageant-master vs. stage director, 
 248 
 
 Pageantry, 246 
 
 Palmer, A. M., on the American 
 drama, 56; his stock company, 
 56; and the American drama, 77 
 
 Parker, Lottie Blair, "Way Down 
 East," 37 
 
 "Pass," attractions of the, 359; 
 evils of the, 367 
 
 Passion Play, The, and the moving- 
 picture, 217 
 
 Patterson, Joseph Medill, and his 
 plays, 296 
 
 Paulding, James K., "The Lion of 
 the West," 50 
 
 Payne, John Howard, 66 
 
 Peabody, Josephine Preston (Mrs. 
 Marks), and "The Piper," 229, 
 230 
 
 Phonograph and the Virginia moun- 
 tains, 203; tribal songs, 203 
 (note) 
 
 Pinero, A. W., mentioned, 4; inti- 
 macy of "Trelawney of the 
 'Wells,'" 111; and Clyde Fitch, 
 170, 171 
 
 Pittsburgh's School of Technology 
 and its Department of Drama, 
 320 
 
 Play mounting, 155, 156, 157 
 
 Play rehearsed, the, 158 
 
 Plays, reading of, 290; extensi/e 
 
 writing of, 362 
 Playwrights, need for a school of 
 
 American, 25; the American, 
 
 169; the newspaper, 170 
 Playwriting, elements in, 169, 377 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, on modern 
 
 drama, 54; Mrs. Mowatt's 
 
 "Fashion," 54, 55 
 Poel, WiUiam, 242 
 Poetry of prose, 238 
 Pollock, Channing, dramatization 
 
 of "The Pit," quoted, 16 
 "Poor Little Rich Girl, The," by 
 
 Eleanor Gates, 306 
 Portmanteau Theatre, The, and 
 
 Stuart Walker, 324, 325 
 Potter, Paul M., on dramatization, 
 
 254 
 Power, Tyrone (1st), and Hoboken, 
 
 178 
 Prairie Playhouse, The, Galesburg, 
 
 111., 331 
 Press-agent, 359, 360; superiority 
 
 of the, over the dramatic critic, 
 
 368, 369; authority of the, 373; 
 
 stories, 373, 374; the old vs. the 
 
 new, 374; organized work, 374 
 Proctor and Keith, 252 
 Prompt copies, 155 
 Properties and effects, 158, 159 
 Provincetown Players, The, 314; 
 
 and the one-act play, 326; men- 
 tioned, 329 
 Public, educating the, 361 ; reading, 
 
 and the theatre, 19 
 
 Realism, 91 
 
 Regeneration and disintegration of 
 the theatre, 352-366 
 
 Rehearsals, 128 
 
 Reizenstein, Elmer, and his "On 
 Trial," 301 
 
 Renovation of past theatre suc- 
 cesses, 39, 41. 
 
 Repertory companies, 37 
 
 Research, problems of, 341, 342 
 
 Revivals, 246; significance of, 241 
 
 Revolutionary dramas, 45 
 
INDEX 
 
 407 
 
 "Rip van Winkle," 50 (note) 
 Rogers, Robert, author of "Pon- 
 
 teach," 291 
 Romanticism and melodrama, 187 
 "Rose of the Rancho, The," and 
 
 its "light plot," 129-132 
 
 Sargent, Epes Winthrop, and his 
 "The Technique of the Photo- 
 play," 217 
 
 Sargent, Franklin, and Belasco, 120 
 
 Satire, American social, 52 
 
 Scenery and the theatre, 361 
 
 Scenes a faire (Sarcey) , 20 
 
 Scenic effect, 127 
 
 Schlegel and melodrama, 188 
 
 "School for Scandal," 179 
 
 Sensationalism, conventional, 196 
 
 Shakespeare, Elizabethan spirit in, 
 4 ; influenceof , 6 1 ; and comedy, 268 
 
 Shaw, George Bernard, on the 
 moving-picture, 225, 226; on 
 Shakespeare, 238; mentioned, 
 289; as a dramatic critic, 372 
 
 Sheldon, Edward, 242 (note); "The 
 Nigger," 287; his plays ana- 
 lyzed, 296, 297, 298; his haste 
 and his skill, 297; as a "play- 
 doctor," 297; as a dramatizer, 
 297, 298; lack of strength in 
 "The Nigger," 297; lack of at- 
 mosphere in "Romance," 298; 
 his exuberant dramatic sense, 298 
 
 "Shore Acres" and Henry George, 
 97 
 
 Situation, sense of, 169 
 
 Skinner, Otis, and the moving-pic- 
 ture, 224, 225 
 
 Slave, the African, in American 
 drama, 46 
 
 Smith, Charles Sprague, and the 
 People's Institute, 249 
 
 Smith, Harry B., defines American 
 drama, 13 
 
 Smith, Richard Penn, 66 
 
 South, the, and drama, 42 
 
 Stadium, a, in New York (See 
 Preface), 247, 248 
 
 Stage designs, 156, 157; elements in 
 lighting, 129; masses, 157; idea 
 behind setting, 158 
 
 Stock companies, value of, 38, 280, 
 
 281; plays, 280, 281 (note) 
 Stoddard, Richard Henry, on 
 
 Boker's dramas, 68, 70 
 Stone, John Augustus, 66 ; plays of, 
 
 66 (note) 
 Style, grandiloquent, of drama after 
 
 1830, 59; and drama, 62, 63 
 Sudermann mentioned, 4 
 Sunlight, moonlight, and footlight, 
 
 239-250 
 Switchboard, David Belasco and 
 
 the psychology of the. 111, 125; 
 
 value of the, 124; use of the, 126 
 Syndicate, the theatrical, 354; evils 
 
 of the, 357 
 
 Tarkington, Booth, and the Ameri- 
 can spirit, 15 
 
 Taste, early American theatrical, 42 
 
 Taj^lor, Tom, and the American 
 type, 51; Asa Trenchard, 86; and 
 Steele Mackaye, 144 
 
 Terms, dramatic, 256 
 
 Theatre, commercialism of, 1, 353; 
 education of audiences, 2; Ameri- 
 can manager, 2; aloofness of, 2; 
 occasional poet of the, 65; local 
 manners and the, 73; sense of 
 the, 124; amusement and the, 
 164; the modern, 228; intro- 
 spection and the, 231; worn-out 
 models of the, 231; human need 
 in the, 239; and the crowd, 239 
 (note), 243, 244; civic thought 
 and the, 240; communal feeling 
 in the, 244; natural resources of 
 the, 246, 250; out-of-doors, 246; 
 civic, 249; National or New, 276- 
 288; as a deproAancializing force, 
 278; disintegration and regener- 
 ation of the, 352-366; manager 
 as a business man, 353; public 
 verdict in the, 355; free-trade, 
 356; endowment, 356; publicity, 
 358; manager and his press- 
 representative, 358; imagina- 
 tion, 360, 361; scenery, 361; 
 hero-worship, 361; poetic drama, 
 363; Ideas in, 363; literary man 
 in the, 364 
 
408 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Theatrical Clearing-House, 358 
 
 Theatrical illusion, dangers of de- 
 stroying, 360 
 
 Theatrical interest, centering of, 
 352 
 
 Theatrical manager, the, 280 
 
 Theatrical "open door," 359 
 
 Theatrical organization, 360 
 
 Theatrical profits, 364 
 
 Theatrical Syndicate, bibliography, 
 122 (note) ; work of, 279; menace 
 of the, 279 
 
 Theatrical Trust, evils of the, 355; 
 excellence of, 358 
 
 Thomas, A. E., his career and his 
 plays, 302; W. P. Eaton on "Her 
 Husband's Wife," 302 
 
 Thomas, Augustus, defines Ameri- 
 can drama, 12, 13; defect in, 13; 
 "The Witching Hour," 83; at 
 rehearsal, 157; career, 159-163; 
 early attempts, 159 ; as reporter, 
 160; his French technique, 160; 
 "Alabama," 160; "In 'Miz- 
 zoura,'" 160; "Arizona," 160; 
 early career, 160; broad comedy, 
 160; three plays of telepathy, 
 161; debut as a dramatist, 161; 
 list of plays, 161 (note); "Ala- 
 bama," 162; Henry Watterson 
 on "Alabama," 162; opinion of 
 "Arizona," 162; value of the 
 moment, 162; opinion of the 
 theatre's province, 162; "As 
 a Man Thinks," 162, 163; his 
 growth, 163; his published plays, 
 168; and the newspaper, 170; 
 di^nsion of the United States, 176; 
 referred to, 292; plays published, 
 292 
 
 Thompson, Denman, 102 (note) 
 
 Thorndike, Professor Ashley, and 
 "Tragedy," 256; on tragedy, 
 256 
 
 Tragedy, lofty, 60; and comedy, 
 255, 256; Aristotle on, 257; and 
 the Tragic Spirit, 257; and 
 America, 258; and nationality, 
 258; types of, 258; and form, 
 261; new form of, 262; and the 
 American people, 262; American 
 
 response to, 262; and comedy, de- 
 fined by Matthews, 266 
 
 Tragical, the, in daily life, 259 
 
 Tragic Spirit, the, 256; defined, 
 260, 261; comedies containing 
 the, 262 
 
 Trust, the Theatrical, and Belasco, 
 121, 122; excellence of the, 354; 
 opposition of the, 354; methods 
 against the insurgents, 355; and 
 the "open door," 355, 356; and 
 the actor, 356 
 
 Tully, Richard Walton, "The Rose 
 of the Rancho," 129-132 
 
 Twain, Mark, "The GHded Age," 
 39 
 
 Tyler, RoyaU, 48 
 
 Type, the American, 39, 49, 50 
 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 46 
 University interest in Little 
 Theatres, 334, 335, 336 
 
 Vaudeville, 253; and the actor, 
 
 253, 254; power of, 359 
 Veiller, Bayard, his plays analyzed, 
 
 300 
 Vocero, the tribal, 239 
 
 Walker, Stuart, and the Portman- 
 teau Theatre, 324, 325 
 
 Wallack galaxy, the, 56; Lester, 56; 
 J. W., encourages Willis, 60; 
 Lester, and the American drama, 
 76,77 
 
 Walter, Eugene, "The Easiest 
 Way," 8, 377; his technique, 
 294; "The Wolf," "Bought and 
 Paid For," 294; his greatest 
 play, "The Easiest Way," 294; 
 "Fine Feathers" referred to, 295 
 
 War, the Great, and the moving- 
 picture, 224 
 
 Warren, Mercy, as a dramatist, 43, 
 291 
 
 Washington, George, as a theatre- 
 goer, 43 
 
 Washington Square Players, the, 
 313; Director Goodman quoted, 
 313, 314; the organization's 
 limitations, 320; and the one-act 
 
 889 W 
 
INDEX 
 
 409 
 
 play, 326; mentioned, 328; 
 challenges ire of David Belasco, 
 337; further criticism of, 338 
 
 Weber and Fields vs. Aristophanes, 
 37 
 
 Well-made play, the, 154 
 
 Wendell, Professor Barrett, neglect 
 of American drama, 346 
 
 Williamsburg theatre, the, 42 
 
 Willis, N. P., as a dramatist, 60, 61; 
 and Forrest, 67 
 
 Wisconsin Dramatic Society, 314 
 
 Wister, Owen, and America, 14, 15 
 
 Women dramatists, 376 
 
 Woods, A. H., producer of melo- 
 dramas, 195 
 
 Woodworth, Samuel, and "The 
 
 Forest Rose," 49 
 Woolf, B. E., and "The Mighty 
 
 Dollar," 39, 52 
 
 Yale students and early American 
 drama, 44; Dramatic Associa- 
 tion, The, 242 
 
 Yankee type, 49, 50, 51 
 
 Yeats, W. B., quoted on the Irish 
 National Dramatic Society, 311 
 
 "Yellow Jacket, The," by Hazelton 
 and Benrimo, 305, 306 
 
 Zangwill, Israel, and "The Melting 
 Pot," 237 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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