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Show THE CITIZEN 28 The Audiences Of Yesterday Daniel Frohman, in Theatre Magazine. the tang of criticism, WITHOUT in that spirit which pleasant impressions fasten upon our lives, we can review them. Instead of beginning with the tiresome accur- acy of scientific boredom, lets forget dates and supplement Impressions, thereby throwing off the years as if they were a cloak to. indicate only a change in the seasons. For statistical record, some are called managers, others are called actors, hut their work should be a mutual endeavor to constantly Improve an industry called the theatre. In the department of management to which I have been allotted, there have been many changes, but my own impressions of the theatre, which began years ago, persist in spite of them. In the earlier seasons of the theatre, plays were written to be acted. The play was the first consideration, and the actors did their best with it. In selecting a play the manager had in mind its adaptability to the hearts of young and old, of the generation I knew. I remember particularly, with much warmth, the kind of audiences we, in the managers department, had to please. The American theatre began as a cheerful, clean, entertaining place. Any attempt by the playwright or the manager to invade the slums of life, to produce a play which dealt with the degradations of human nature would have made those audiences indignant. They were nice people, living in a New York that was very different from the New York of today. They wanted nice plays, and they got them. AT the risk of appearing to be old-fashione- Tan-quera- y, CANT help thinking that those audiences of that springtime season in the American theatre were pioneers in a dramatic taste that should have stayed with us. They liked the American idea of dialogue, character, scene, and even plot. They wanted to see the foreigner as they saw him I then, a queer-lookin- g, queer-soundin- g, individual from our American standard. Many of us remember the jumping-jac- k Frenchman, the excitable Italian, the fortune- queer-thinkin- g hunting Englishman, the funny little in-vti- sex-play- . r d, which no man in theatrical life can ever find time to become, I remember those audiences that came to the old Lyceum theatre on iFourth Avenue, with special pride. They were the best, the prettiest, the youngest and the oldest of New Yorks social world. New Yorkers were more real then, than they are now. The New Yorker as I knew him then was not such an obvious leader of finance. He was much more of a home maker. To say this of him today would be in the main untrue, but, in those first seasons of my stock company in the little Lyceum I had to weigh the character of a play by the obligations due his family, especially his pretty daughters who spent their Saturday matinees dividing s and their emotions between plays There were certain definite rules by which a play for the Lyceum was protected. First of all, it had to end happily. Its entanglements of heart or villainy must not go too deeply into the psychology of love or cilme, and it would have to be a play thoroughly cleansed of sex appeal. I dont know positively, of course, but it is my impression that those audiences did not consider sex a desirable 'theme for the play. That is, the never-to-be-forgott- American stage didnt think so. Gf course, in England and in France where literature and art were more advanced, the theatre was more outspoken. In America, however, we were slow to mature into the frankness we have now reached. It is not long ago that Pinero spelled questionable morals in his play The Second Mrs. and Daudets Sappho was submitted to police censorship. Personally, I think artistic motive excuses much, but in the days when I was unconsciously living among the stars the plays I produced were articles that no one need be ashamed to sell. They; had two prime requirements, cleanliness and happy endings. German, the witty Irishman. The latter, by the way, was an ally that the playwright could always use in his The Irishman plot, advantageously. was among the most adaptable characters to the American theatre as he was to the laws of our coutnry. Most of the plays selected by me for the old Lyceum were plays of sentiment, romance, tenderness, humor and ultimate happiness. Above all, they were happy plays. Audiences in New York, in those days, cared little for unhappy plays. They gave the American stage the right impulse, and they got the reaction of a pleasant evening in the theatre. Later, the years rolled up cloudy nights, and gloom came upon us in plays and in the movies. Gloom, it seems to me, has become inseparable from the way people enjoy themselves in the theatre today. Flays are all, more or less donts so far as moral purpose in them is concerned. In crime-play-s we are inspired to sympathize with s we are the criminal, in to think about forbidden things, in musical plays we are directed to make ' up, in anatomical interest, for what they lack of musical interest. But, this is only said by the way, by contrast to the time when there was an American stage for Americans who were normal men and women, with good taste in youth and romantic en ed thusiasm that survived when they grew older. so happened, though I didnt IT know it at the time, that my stock company has astral quality. I was harboring stars who did not perceive their destiny any more than I did, at the time. In certain degrees of astral temperament they were very proficient ,however. Often, when I cast a play those actors rebelliously attacked my decision, refusing to play the parts assigned to them. As to plays, in those days of optimism in the theatre, I was fortunate in becoming associated with two young men who caught the spirit of their times admirably, who understood just the exact difference between sentiment and sentimentality, just the quantity and quality that the best New York audiences wanted in a play, They were comparatively unknown then. Lord Chum-leThey wrote The Wife, and the greatest success I had, The Charity Ball. Their names were not less famous to the theatregoers of the eighties, than they are to their many audiences of today. The late H. C. DeMille left two sons whose careers prove that they inherit his genius. David Belasco has gloomed up tremendously since then. The plays written for my stock company at the old Lyceum were well balanced optimistic stories of that domestic and social period when New York was an American city, which it is no more. The Wife in its very choice of title interprets a period in New --York when men and women were socially related. The Charity Ball symbolizes that element in the life of New York when there was a society pride and dignity that has long been driven out by money and noise. These young playwrights were fortunate in having such ah excellent stock company to write for. and such a responsive, delighted audience, too. The playwright surely enjoyed his influence over the matinee girls. What a charming, ingenious, alert, enthusiastically romantic lot they were! In themselves a flower garden of beauty to s6e, they filled the theatre with their own glamour of romance which they brought wTith them. Those matinees were the first hours of emotional adventure when the New York girl in her teens ' imagined herself a wise and world-wor- n woman. y, i 'T'HEY were happy hours for the act-or- s, They couldn't help feel the impulsive charm of those eager lomanticists who hung upon every word and scene with Impassioned intoo. en terest. bon-bon- Of course, my company, I feel, was NEW COMEDY BY AARON HOFFMAN, "GEORGE WASHINGTON COHEN,' exceptional. But it was possible in those days. The road tours wero limited, there were fewer theatres, the stage had not been commercialized for the country at large. It was not a trade in those days, it was still an art. I paid one of my pseudo-star- s $60 a week, and when later, due to the obvious rush of commercial prospect I raised it to $76, he was quite proud and lavish. Looking from a |