Show I 1 Good Advice Weighs Down I II I Shakespeare's Home Town I Io o 4 Q London Times In Tn Avon on the other day I could not help heip thinking of Max Beerbohm's cartoons of eminent eminent emi emi- nent men as they hey ure arc and and as they were In their youth One need n not be a or any other sort of anti antl to know that between tween the Stratford of ot 1564 and the Stratford of today there the Is more difference than Max showed In ev even n nI I the mo mot most t Jol violent nt of his contrasts At any rate the dirt dirty provincial unenlightened little tittle town Into I which Shake Shakespeare was as born could never hn have e guessed that In three centuries It would be famous all nfl the world over 1 not only for tor Its Us greatest son lion but for tor Its own beauty be dignity and charm chann But to po It has haft become Listening to jhO tho Iio hell after the tho public luncheon on the birth birthday ay I Mud heard not for the first firM time that all over Europe and tho the Americas and In far tar Iraq Iran and Afghanistan not only Shakespeare rt but Stratford on are fa familiar fn- fn names and subjects of admiration Thanks of cou course e very ery largely to Shakespeare Stratford has grown Into a n. town so ao worthy of Shakespeare peare that lot let Shakespeare be conclusively proved to have written Itlen not a n. line of the plays and the poems still sam Stratford would be for tor her own sake ake a a. place of ot pilgrimage and anil of worship But conclusive proof Is not yet produced and Stratford with Shakespeare Sh thrown In Is more than a national p procession slon It Is held by us In trust for tor the tho whole holA world On One does not envy y the acting administrator of I the the trust Theirs is Js' Js Jsn a n very ery heavy responsibility complicated by bythe the readiness of many of the beneficiaries bene bene- to tell teU them what they ought to do And Just now they are burdened with a n. greater reater wel weight ht of good advice than usual because they have two difficult Jobs on their hands at once On One OnA Is to en enable enable en- en able their Innumerable visitors to get into Stratford Stratford Strat Strat- ford and anti get out again without Injury to each others other's Um limbs and motorcars Part of the property is a very bt beautiful cry very English river rl hut But you cannot cannot cannot can can- not get such a n river to make a a famous view b by flowing past your our church without paying for it somehow and the way you pay for rivers rivera Is by having havIng hayIng hav hay ing to build bridges over oer them the Old Clopton bridge with the flowers growing bright between th the stones above aboe its old Id round arches is too narrow for tOr modem modern modern mod mod- em ern road traffic Something m must t be done A few weeks week ago the Shakespeare Memorial theatre not so eo much got burned as went off ort leavins leavIng leaving leav leav- ing ins the thc shell like the case of a spent cartridge The hanu harassed sed but plucky administrators of the trust find the beneficiaries demanding a new theatre theatre the the- I atre l and very ready ad to subscribe at least good advice adIce advice ad ad- vice Ice toward the object It must be an Elizabethan theatre It must not be an Elizabethan theatre It must be something like the original theatre theatre- of James Jame'S Burbage an Elizabethan theatre on Mon Mon- days l Wednesdays and Fridays and another sort on Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays It must stand on the old site s It must stand any anywhere here but hilt buton hilton buton on the old site So far tar for the present only But when It comes to particular questions of scenic devices lighting seating and so forth the administrators admin of f the trust will vill scarcely dare to open their newspapers p rs of or their postbags b A |