OCR Text |
Show AN ENDOWED THEATRE. An endowed theatre would bo a good thing if you could got the man to endow It. I am enthusiastically in favor of It; but, to bo frank, it seems to mo Impracticable. In tho first place, who would endow It? Mr. Andrew Carnegie has been most delicately and Indelicately hinted at. I havo seen largo pictures of Mr. Carnegie exploited exploit-ed over tho words "An Endowed The-atro"; The-atro"; but, so far ns I can make out, Mr. Carnegie has said nothing. Ho seems to bo In hiding, and his castle ln Scotland stands unshaken. Lot us assume that wo could havo such a theatre in America. Where would wo get any person, or set of persons, per-sons, who could and would run It V Thero are, of course, plenty of those people who pose as being intelligent, and clever and literary, and who are in consequence fatuous and self-satisfied; but they could not run a theatre. Becauso a man edits a magazine and because a woman writes a novel, or becauso somo other woman is interested inter-ested ln tho question of helping women in journalistic or other careers, it does not follow that they know anything about tho drama. That is the trouble with all efforts that havo been made in America to establish es-tablish an independent theatre; they are all run by tho wrong peoplo. To conduct such an enterprise requires an enormous amount of tact and skill and power. In Fraco thoy carefully train people for careers In tho theatre, and thoy havo tho Francals, an endowed en-dowed theatre that has boon runnlg for many generations, and all classes of French peoplo take an Interest in the theatre and go to see plays. In an endowed theatre in this country, coun-try, I presume tho plan would bo to put on good plays and havo them well acted, not simply to put on literary plays. A good play Is always to bo desired de-sired whether it is literary or not. You may remember tho attempts to run such a theatro In America a few years ago. It started under splendid auspices; aus-pices; it had also a good deal of money. And what did tho directors do? Ono of tho first things they did was to put on a five-act play by a writer of one-act stories. Tho attitude they took was distinctly literary. To be able to write stories for tho magazines maga-zines was taken as an ovidenco that ono could write a play. As a conso-quenco conso-quenco tho now enterprise didn't give as good plays as tho most commercial managers had been doing. To mako an endowed theatre really useful you must havo a man, or a committee, com-mittee, perhaps of both women and men, and it can't bo a big committee, becauso with a big committee nothing could over bo accomplished. Tho time would be wasted In contention. Say ii committee of thrco persons, becauso two would not do. But how aro you going to get men and women of ability to servo? Think of tho responsibility! Every tlmo thoy produced a play that had no dramatic quality thoy would glvo tho drama in America a slap In tho face. Now, whero will you find peoplo who can guaranteo that tho plays produced will ho good ones? Thero aro certainly somo right-minded right-minded peoplo in this country. Whether tho theatre would get into their hands Is another thing. If tho chargo were given them, would thoy havo sufficient patriotism to accept It? it Is exactly Hko tho question of poll-tics poll-tics In our country; a groat many of our best men havo kept out of politics because they aro not willing to go through tho work and unselfishness and to fight with nl their might and main to keep their souls and bodies clean, and keep tho samo high Ideals thoy havo ahead of them. Tho man who should run a theatre would, no doubt, havo to fnco all kinds of opopsltlon. Tho namby-pamby would want him to produco ono kind of play; tho literary, tho clover, tho charming peoplo would want something some-thing else. You soo I havo boon writing about tho endowed theatro as If It wero possible. pos-sible. Well, perhaps It is possible; but I fear, as I said at the start, that it would not work, or at loast that you can't get tho right peoplo to work it But what an attractivo ideal It is! Clyde Fitch. |