Evening Star Newspaper, May 10, 1931, Page 30

CAN'T KILL THE DRAMA, NOTED CRITIC DECLARES Movies Have Made Inroads, but Famous Author Points a Way Out for Legitimate Theater. (Continued From Third Page.) dinner table in such a state of preser- vation that only a sensitive and culti- | vated ear can distinguish them fr:m music. Do the opera companies and symphony orchestras begin to concen- trate on Wagner and Beethoven and other composers whose products can not be thus delivered? They do not! Instead, they meet the new c>mpetition | by doing more and more of the stuff that can be delivered . . . by taking over the repertoires of the defeated dance halls and giving programs in which there is a bit of Bach, but a good deal more of “Buddy” de Silva and Irving Berlin. ‘When patronage falls off, because the le who want to hear Berlin can ear him, with trimmings and greater economy, at their dinner tables, Bo-| danzky and Toscanini and Mengelberg | quit in disgust and announce that music is defunct, and Carnegie Hall will be turned into a garage. Just What Happened. ‘This is exactly what has happened in the theater. The new-born “movie” quickly swallowed everything that was assimilable . . . melodrama, farce and comedy of physical action; variety and burlesque. The “popular-priced cir- cuits” called it a day; vaudeville tock in the invader, and burlesque became something it would be better not to describe in a family newspaper. And then, as indicated in my story of “Dangers of Working Girls” and “The | Bhanghal Gesture,” the “first-class” theaters entered into competition by concentrating on the very stuff that had been driven out of the others. Managers bought and produced plays hecause, afterward, they would make good and salable “movie” material. Hook, line and sinker, the Drama went into Show Business. At one time—and it might have been almost any time up to now—Broadway’s 62 stages were divided between 21 musical comedies, 6 plays dealing with crime, 13 reeking ‘with sex, 14 about nothing at all, and exactly 8 aimed at anything more than 2 inches above the collar button. Obviously, the theater was doing its best, but against heavy odds. Early in the struggle most of the people who wanted to hear Bach retired to their libraries and forgot Broadway. Not for the first time in history, nor for the last, but as always just before the drama begins dying, “the stage existed in a world apart from that of culture.” Many years ago I went to a resort in Baltimore that for two decades had been “the home of polite vaudeville.” Over might it had been furned into a weapon against “the Theatrical Trust,” and an astonished and unwarned throng of its regular patrons fcund themselves watching not jugglers and acrobatic comedians, but Mrs. Fiske in “Rosmersholm.” As the curtain .was falling, & gentleman on my right re- ., marked, “The guy that booked this show can have the sAtisfaction of knowing that he’s put me off the the- ayter for life!” A gocd many gentle- men and gentlewomen of a dilferent sort_have said the same thing duringq the last few seasons. Contest Grows Unequal. With this clientele lost, the contest became shckingly unequal. What the other and undeniably larger crowd wanted the “movies” could and did supply with unapproachable generosity. Flesh-and-blood musical comedy man- aged “70 glorified 1s;” the pictures threw in another 900, and at some- thing less than half price. Flesh-and- blood millionaires swaggered about can- vas drawing rooms, but cinema soclety lived in the Grand Central Station. ‘The Balkan Princess of PFilmdom might be short on court etiquette and English, but it took 500 feet of cellu- loid for her to climb miles of marble stairs leading to her elevated station. ‘The best of the “regular shows” could boast only a couple of murders, where the worst “movies” provided a massacre. ‘Why pay $2 to see a gentleman shot in the library when for a fraction of the money you could watch him fall over a cliff, and follow him down, or listen to the pipe organ while tender | hands were picking his remains from | a heap of ten-thousand-dollar motor cars whose thrilling and expensive col- | lision you had just witnessed with your | own eyes? q | And love . .. But this is a family paper. | It would be foolish and unfair to #ay these things were all the “movies” | gave us. They brought back the car- | nival spirit. Outside the big cities, most regular theaters were dingy and dirty and falling to pleces. Even in Mew York seats were narrow and stiff- | backed and so close together that if | the man behind happened to be tall you wore his kneecaps all evening on the back of your coat. Music has dis- | appeared, and in the houses devoted to | drgma the orchestra pit was concealed | beneati: a tasteful slope of Autumn leaves suggective cf late November in | & country cemetery. 4 | ‘The magnates built “movie | cathedrals.” Many of them are not esthetically beautiful (you've heard of | the man who locked at one of the most ornate and remarked that Harry Thaw had shot the wrong archetect), but most of them are comfortable. A noted surgeon of my acquaintance says he can sleep better in a motion picture theater than in his own home. There are few finer orchestras than in these places of amusement, and they are spreading understanding and appreciation of good music. The film magnates also kept faith. Every production was the “original” ... with a few cuts, perhaps, but nothing more serious. The Race Economically. Economically, of course, the race has been like that of a man with an antelope; the longer the man runs the | farther behind he geis” It is the age- old conflict between wholesaler and re- tailer, between the machine-made and the handmade. The “movies” require actors for what in the theater is the period of rehearsals. When the show is produced and ready for its premiere the actors are “through” So are the stage hands, and . . . outside the big supplementary orchestras in the “cathe- drals” . . . the musicians. A first rate stage production tours in two 60-foot cars; & “movie” travels in a tin can. And the cost of actors and stage hands and musicians and rallway travel and baggage transfer and everything has been mounting higher and higher. Al e shoes. It stops the tor- most sensitive bunion almost property man gets more than a widely known college professor, and the musi- cians’ union: classified Arthur Hopkins’ presentation of “Hamlet” as a musi- cal show” because it involved extra fiddling, and boosted the rates accord- gly. Years before the cinema came into being Israel Zangwill said that drama was “an art conducted as a business by bad business men.” Years before it became popular I published a magazine article called “Who Killed Cock Robin?" in which I declared that the theater was _committing suicide. It was and is. Run as it was and is being run, the most vindictive prosecutor could not accuse the films of anything nearer murder than administering the coupe de grace. This is a large subject, but we may pause for one of its major questions. Which is: How can anybody expect to sell any- thing he has made as hard to buy as theater tickets? “Show Business” Dead. ‘Whoever killed it, the drama is dead, or dving. Anyway, the “show business” is dead, and its older brother, long left in the same crib, shows life only here and there. Only those of us who think we have our ears close to its heart are willing to diagnose the case as one of suspended animation. The child’s foster parents are hopeless and appar- ently helpless. While organization and vigorous measures are indicated, they remain the only unorganized branch of the theater. Last Winter I attended a luncheon given by one manager to dis- ciiss combining the others. We lunched and discussed, and there the matter ended. . ‘There have been meetings and news- paper interviews about curbing ticket speculation, but it remains uncurbed. In 15 years the number of stages avail- able to professional acting companies i the United States and Canada has shrunk from 1,800 to fewer than 400. As recently as 1923 a touring organi- zation could play eight weeks in Texas. Now it couldn’t glny eight minutes. A few years ago there were 30 weeks of “one-night stands” in New England. Today there are two. And unless you want to count the big cities, there isn't a oollege or university town in America that maintains a shrine for professional dramatic art. But meanwhile strange things have been happening. ‘The strangest—and yet it has hap- pened before whenever and wherever like conditions cbtained—has been the birth and rapid growth and develop- ment of the amateur movement. There are'more than a thousand so-called “little theaters” in America. Probably & good many more. And these do. not include all the regularly organized com- panies that act in schools and churches. What do they act? Shows? Not a bit of it! These people aren’t entering into competition with the “movies.” Or with the “show business.” They aren't entering into competition with any- body or anything. They wanted drama, and, failing to get it over the counter, they went in for home brew. It is easy to minimize or make fun of this rebirth, but the ineluctable truth is that for centuries theatrical saviors— and I say this most reverently—have continued to be born in the manger. Will Organize Theater. Some day somemdil will really start in to “organize the theater” and audi- ences, as Matthew Arnold suggested ages ago), so that the production of fine plays will stop being a gamble and become the only “sure thing” in- vestment in its field. Meanwhile new blood is flowing into the “commercial” theater, and there is an ever-increasing number of eyes that see. In an interview the manager I'ho" presented “The Shanghai Ges- ture” recently remarked: ‘“Next year I'm going in for a new kind of play that the ‘movies’ can’t copy so easly.” Drama in the “commercial” theater in New York was never more alive than just before the financial depression hit it a staggering but far-from-fatal blow. So much so that the most optimistic observers were at a loss to explain it. George Jean Nathan actually credits 't‘he deserters. “The talkies,” he says, have performed their valuable physic in ridding our audience of their dumber elements . . " “The future of the theater is thus full of promise. As the ‘talkies’ improve, l!:lOSt of the second-rate element that still figures to a degree in the theater audience will be weaned away from it and gradually it will approach the state and condition that dramatists and critics have been praying for.” The intellectual audience is still a very limited audience; let's not fool our- ves about that. Limited even if we nclude those who want to appear in- tellectual and will pay big prPc' and suffer through the Ring of the Nibe- lungs to do it. Limited even if wein- ist . . . as Ido... that dullness and y do not constitute greatness; that a play that can't interest the aver- age educated man with a taste for drama isn't a good play; and that “Strictly Dishonorable,” for example, has its place in the first-class theater as surely as . . . perhaps more surely than . .. “The Master Builder.” The days of first-class theaters that rent . .. naked . . . for $100,000 a year are nearly over. The days of produc- tions that cost twice that sum #re prob- ably numbered. Presentations that “have to do §15000 a week to break even” cannot continue to exist. Why should they? The clearest distinction between drama and “shows” is the dis- tinction between mental and physical richnesc. Many of us are as tired of cluttered and ornate stage decoration as the impresario, taking his ow” to the Coast, who was awakened in the Garden of the Gods to “look at the scenery.” Answer Held Obvious. The answer, I hold, is pretty obvi- ous. “The old order changeth.” The entire personnel of the theater may change with it. We may develop a wholly new system of production or go back .to a very old one. But drama is not dead, or dying. Its guardians have been hitting it on the head and starving it, and then complaining because an infant art hasn’t the robustness of an infant industry—an industry that has just swallowed the ‘“show business.” But now there hes been a blood trans- fusion. There has been a liberal dose of Mr. Nathan's “physic.” And the sick child is being taken into its own room, SUNDAY to grow up in its own way, to the de- light of its own family. Nobody has anything against the new baby. Il makes a lot of noise, but so do most new babies. So long as it be- haves itself decently we shall wish it well and acknowledge its place in the scheme of things. We shall hope that its morals and its manners and its men- e with ; that it de- of its perfectly ob- But when its spon- sors cry from the housetops that they are crowding out our kind of entertain- ment let us remind them that, to the credit of the human race, whenever and wherever there hasn’t been room for both kinds, the crowding out has been done by the Goethes and the Molieres and the Shakespeares. PUBLIC LIBRARY GUIDE BOOKS FOR THE TRIP ABROAD. For those planning a trip abroad this year the Public Library calls attention to the following books: Baedekers. ‘The tourist and his Baedeker have been the butt of many jokes, but there can be no doubt that the little red vol- umes are almost indispensable on a first trip, and they are particularly useful to the independent tourist who attempts to make his own hotel, rallway and steamer reservations. The central build- ing has reference’ coples of all the Baedakers listed, is ordering circulating coples and has some older editions of comparatively recent date now on hand for circulation. The Mount Pleasant branch circulates lleDies. Baedeker, Karl— Austria, together with _Budapest, Prague, Karlsbad, Marienbad. 1929. G56.B14. The Dominion of Canada with New- foundland and an Excursion to Alaska. 1922. G82.B143. Egypt and the Sudan. 1920. G71.B143. Great Britain. 1927, G440.B144. Italy from the Alps to Naples. 1928. G35.B141. London and Its Environs. 1030. G45L.B143. - Northern Germany. 1925. G47.Bl4n. Northern Italy. 1930. G35.Bl4n. Paris and Its Environs. 1924. G39P.B144. The Rhine from the Dutch to the Alsatian Frontier. 1926. G47R.Bl4r. Rome and Central Italy. 1930. ‘G35.B14r. Southern Germany (Baden, Black Forest, Wurtemberg and Bavaria). 1929. G47.Bl4s. Southern Italy and Sicily, with Ex- cursions to Sardinia, Malta, Tripoli and Corfu. 1930. G35.Blds. Switzerland, together with Chamonix and _the Itallan Lakes. 1928. G38.B14. Tyrol and the Dolomites, including the Bavarian Alps. 1927. G37.B144t. ‘The Muirhead “Blue Guides” are “Baedekers” of English origin. They have all the detailed information, hotel rates and excellent maps that gave the principal value to the earlier series. Muirhead, Findlay, England. 1930. . M894. 1930. G45.M894g. Great Britain. London and Its Environs. 1927. G45L.M895 1. Northern Italy from the Alps to Rome (Rome excepted), by L. V. Bertarelll. 1924, G35.M894, Scotland. 1927. G43.M89s. 70 Miles Around London. _THE tality improve velops to the limit vious possibilities. 1930. 1924. including Rome, Sicily and Sardinia, by L. V. Ber- tarelll. 1925. G35.M804s. Switzerland with Chamonix and the Italian Lakes. 1930. G38.M804. Wales. 1922. G44.M805. Muirhead, Findlay, ed, and Mon marche, Marcel, ed.— G468.M894. G39B.M88. 1923. G37.M894. Normandy. 1925. G39N.M89. Northeastern France. 1922. G39.M894n. Northwestern France. 1926. 1927, 1026. G39.M894s. G39P.M804. Southern France. Informal Guides. If the guide books in Miss Laughlin's serfes are to be used in the selection of hotels and transportation they are for the opulent traveler only, but those whose funds are limited. may find in them much historical and descriptive information that will add to the un- tachments, We Repair All Mal of 8ewing Machines STAR, WASHINGTON 0 Mg e Work of Diplomats Described In Stimson Radio Address __(Continued From Third Page) have indicated that the effort has not been unsuccessful. In many other afirmative ways we have been following out the same pur- pose. The long-standing quarrel be- tween Chile and Peru over Tacng-Arica was finally amicably terminated Tn 1929. During the same year a war between Bolivia and Paraguay was averted by the efforts of a commission presided derstanding and pleasure of their trip. Laughlin, Clara Elizabeth— So Yéu're Going to England! 1926. G45.L364s. So You're Going to France! 1927 G39.L364s. So You're Going to Germany and Austria! 1930. G47.L36s. So You're Going to Italy! 1925. G35.L364. Bo You're Going to Paris! 1927 G39P.L364. So Youre Going to Rome! 1928. G36.L364. Bo Youre Going to Spain! 1931 G40.L37. For children— Where It All Comes True in Italy and Switzerland. 1928. G35.L364w. Where It All Comes True in Scandi- navia. 1929. G48.L36w. The Newman Travel Talks have been put into book form. Each has over 300 illustrations. They make no recom- mendations other than incidental as to hotels, give no prices, and are the most informal and chatty of the guides listed. | Newman, Edward Manuel— Seeing Egypt and the Holy’ Land. 1928. GT71.N46. Seeing England and Scotland. 1930. G45.N46s. Seeing France. 1930. G39.N46. Seeing Germany. 1929. G47.N46s. Seeing Italy. 1927. G35.N466s. Seeing Russia. 1928. G54.N466. Seeing Spain and Morocco. 1830 G40.N46. About a third of each of the Schoon- maker books is devoted to “the prac- tical side,” costs, hotels, food, railroads, festivals, the best way to spend the time, etc. With these essentials dis- posed of the remainder ‘of each volume is devoted to sight-seeing in the cities | and towns. Schoonmaker, Frank— Come With Me Through Holland. 1928. G46.8c! Come With Me Through France. 1928. G39.5ch66. Come With Me Through Germany. 1930. GA47.Sch6s. Gome With Me Through Italy. 1929. G35.5ch66. Through Europe on Two Dollars & Day. 1927. G30.Schét. Belgium and h66. Another Shipment over by an American and which held its meetings in our State Department in Washington. Our friendly offices have been smoothing out other difficul- ties, of which boundary disputes con- stitute an example, between various American republics. During the major portion of the past two years the whole world hes been passing through one of the most seri- ous economic depressions of the past| half century. Its effects upon inter- national relations have been many and serfous. During that period there have been no less than 45 sudden changes in the governments of the countries of the world. In no less than 11 of these instances these changes in government were the result of armed revolution. In addition, 10 unsuccessful revolutions were attempted, but were quelled by the government in power. Most of these political disturbances were attributable directly or indirectly to the hard times through which we aré passing. Many of them have furnished acute problems for the American State Department. For us it has been a period of strain almost as serious as if we were en- gaged in war ourselves. The tribula- tions of our neighbors have not only produced diplomatic problems of gov- ernmental relations, but in view of the many Americans who now live, do busi- ness and make investments in many of those countries, the financial erisis which has produced the revolutions has also often brought American lives and property into jeopardy. In all of this we have endeavored to act under recognized principles of justice and equity in dealing with the problems of our citizens with their neighbors. We have endeavored to carry out firmly and impartially the rules of recogni- tion of revolutionary governments which have been attested as sound by the ex- perience of history. In spite of all the chances for misunderstanding with which these events have bristled, we are today on cordial working remations with all of the new governments pro- duced by this crisis. We have been and shall continue to be zealous in our con- cern for the lives of our nationals wherever they may be found. Where American investments or claims are imperiled by the widespread depression, we are seeking to give to Americans all of the coungel and assistance to which they are entitled under the law of na- tions, while never losing sight of the great fact pointed out by Elihu Root, nearly a quarter of a century ago, that it is “the established policy of the United States not to use its Army and Navy for the collection of debts.” ‘Though we have been passing through a period of storm, we have tried so to conduct ourselves that we shall emerge TS Of Those Popular Slippers . For a Limited Time $40 ALLOWANCE For Your .Old Machine If You Purchase This 99¢ pr. Two Pairs $1.10 —Chic, comfortable slli— pers in red, blue and black. 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TO HAVE HIT ACTRESS| Alona Marlowe Claims She Was Beaten at Studio Dressing in this hemisphere and toward the mflnwmnu of peace in the world at Room. Be. BANDIT RECAPTURED By the Assoctated Press. . LOS ANGELES, May 9.—The city prosecutor’s office yesterday was asked AFTER JAIL BREAK | by Alona Marlowe, film player, for a _— ‘(I‘jlrnplllnt hcnnluu bngf;ry Tl{:flxz | yan Tashman, screen T, AN o Sentenced to 25 Years at Hard | mediately began an investigation of the Labor for Robbery of | girl's story. Miss Marlowe, sister of June Marlowe, Bank. film actress, said that Miss Tashman By the Aszociated Press. HASTINGS, Nebr, May 9.—James | kicked and beat her May 1 in Ed- mund Lowe's bungalow dressing room Thomas, Amarillo, Tex., convicted bank robber, who early today es- at a studio. Lowe is Miss Tashman's caped from the Adams County Jail, husband. The girl said that she was waiting but was captured within six hours in the county treasurer's office, was sen- for friends near Lowe's dressing room and Lowe asked her to come inside “out tenced to 25 years at hard labor in the State Penitentiary today. Officers left of the sun.” She said he left immedi- ately for a set And soon after she was with him for the prison at Lincoln im- mediately. left alone Miss Tashman entered and began beating her. Outsiders inter- ‘Thomas was convicted here May 5 in connection with the $27,000 robbery of | fered, she said. Informed the case had been placed the Hastings National Bank Febru-| ary 25. in the hands of the city prosecutor, Miss Tashman and Lowe denied any Sheriff Ray Crosson said Thomas sawed his way out of a solitary confine- | such thing happened. 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