One-Act Plays Part 7

Not only is modern drama being read and studied in the English cla.s.ses, but the schools are becoming centres of Little Theatre movements and leading their communities in pageants and dramatic festivals. An editorial in _The New York Evening Post_ in 1918 put it in this way: "As Froude states that in Tudor England there was acting everywhere from palace to inn-yard and village green, so, the prediction is made, future historians will record that in our America there was acting everywhere--in neighborhood theatres, portable theatres, church clubs, high schools and universities, settlements, open amphitheatres, and hotel ballrooms."

One reason that amateur dramatics have taken on a new lease of life in the schools is because other teachers besides teachers of English have become interested in the project of giving a play. Students in physics cla.s.ses have planned and executed lighting systems for the school theatre, students in carpentering and manual arts have built the scenery from designs made in drawing cla.s.ses, curtains have been stenciled, costumes made and cloths dyed in domestic art cla.s.ses, programs printed by the school printing squad, music furnished by the school orchestra and dances taught by the physical training department. In most cases the line coaching and the general direction of the play have been part of the work in English.

A concrete example will ill.u.s.trate this kind of co-operation. Several years ago the department of English at the Washington Irving High School gave two plays, _Three Pills in a Bottle_, a product of the 47 Workshop, by Rachel Lyman Field, and _The G.o.ddess of the Woven Wind_, by Alice Rostetter. _The G.o.ddess of the Woven Wind_ had grown out of cla.s.s-room work. The girls in an industrial course were studying the origin of the silk industry. A pamphlet stated that the wife of Hoangti, Si-Ling-Chi, was the first to prepare and weave silk. This legend offered suggestive dramatic material peculiarly appropriate for a girls' high school.

The work of obtaining the setting and the properties was divided between two committees, each working under the direction of a chairman. Since fifty dollars had been fixed as the limit of expenditure for the two plays, the problem was rather a difficult one.

Fortunately, _Three Pills in a Bottle_ calls for a small cast. The cast of The _G.o.ddess of the Woven Wind_, however, included thirty-four girls, most of whom had to be orientally clad and equipped. The teacher who contemplates putting on a rather elaborate costume play in his or her high school will be interested to learn that the amount was so exactly fixed and the department so resourceful that fifty-one dollars and nine cents was the total sum spent on the two plays. Then, lest anyone think that there had been a miscalculation, let it be added that this sum included the money spent for hot chocolate to serve to the casts of the plays, between the afternoon and evening performances.

The problem of staging _Three Pills in a Bottle_ was greatly simplified by the fact that the frontispiece of the play gives a simple, effective setting not difficult to copy. With the aid of some amateur carpentering, the regular interior set was easily transformed to suit the purpose. The problem of color was solved when the chairman of the committee found a patchwork quilt in the attic, during a visit to her mother's home; a conference with the janitress of her city apartment developed the fact that she possessed a freshly scrubbed wash-tub, which she was willing not only to donate to the cause, but to have painted green.

The task of staging _The G.o.ddess of the Woven Wind_ was difficult and interesting, because it was decidedly a costume play, and because it was a first production. Some of the difficulties that confronted the chairman of the committee for that play were amusing.

For instance, after some perplexed thought on the subject, she tacked the following list of costumes and properties on the Bulletin Board of the English office:

WANTED:

Mulberry tree Gardener's spade Teakwood stool Chinese necklaces Large, colorful abacus Mandarin coats and hats Sky-blue Chinese bowl Chinese gong Bamboo rod Silk coc.o.o.ns

She also advertised the need of these things and many others in all her cla.s.ses. Within two weeks nearly everything had either appeared or been promised, except a Chinese gong with a proper "whang" to it, an unbreakable sky-blue bowl and the mulberry tree! A teacher in a neighboring school lent the company a splendid gong, sometimes used in their orchestra; a student transformed a wooden chopping bowl by means of clay and tempera into an exquisite piece of pottery, copied from a priceless bowl on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The mulberry tree was still an unsolved problem, when Dugald Stuart Walker, the artist who has produced a number of plays at the Christadora House in New York, was consulted. He suggested that the tree be a conventionalized one of flat "drapes" of green and brown poplin, with coc.o.o.ns sewn on in a simple border design.

The staging of the play then became a project for members of a third-year art cla.s.s. During their English period they read the play, recited on the subject of the China of remote dynasties, constructed a miniature stage, and then, forming committees among themselves, worked out the practical details. One group purchased the necessary paint, another painted the vermilion sun. Her neighbor affixed it to a bamboo rod. To emphasize the Chinese setting, two girls made a frame with a dragon as head-piece and huge, colorful Chinese medallions to be sewn on the side drapery. The design for the medallions was obtained from a Chinese bra.s.s plate. Almost every girl in the cla.s.s took part in the project. Interest was easily aroused, as a number of girls in this cla.s.s took part in the play.

As for the costumes, for the thirty-four members of the cast, only eight dollars' worth was hired. The rest were either borrowed or made by the girls. The most successful one, perhaps, that worn by the empress, was copied from an Edmund Dulac ill.u.s.tration of the Princess Badoura. The astrologers' costumes were obtained from photographs of _The Yellow Jacket_, lent by Mrs. Coburn. To complete the project, the girls wrote a composition explaining how to organize the staging of a costume play.

Meanwhile, the selection and coaching of the two casts was going on.

Compet.i.tion for the parts was open to the girls of the entire school.

A great many girls were tried out before the two committees made a choice. In fact, every girl who was recommended by her English teacher was given an opportunity to read a part. In a number of cases two girls were a.s.signed for one part and it was not known until almost the last moment who was to have the role or who was to understudy.

Rehearsals were held at least three times a week, for three weeks, and a full-dress rehearsal was held two days before the final performance.

It was thought advisable to allow a day to elapse between the last rehearsal and the real performance, in order to give the girls an opportunity to rest.

In coaching the plays, an effort was made to have a girl read the line properly without having it read to her. The members of the coaching committee would explain the mood or frame of mind to the speaker; the girl would then interpret the mood in her reading.

In addition to the coaching committee, several teachers sat at the back of the auditorium during rehearsals, to warn the speakers when they could not be heard.

The advertising campaign began soon after a choice of plays had been made. In compliance with the request of the Publicity Committee, one of the teachers of an art cla.s.s and a teacher in the English Department a.s.signed to their pupils the problem of making posters to advertise the plays. To the painter of the best one a prize was awarded.

Announcements of the play were posted by pupils in various parts of the building. Tiny brochures decorated with Chinese motives were prepared by students during an English period, and later were circulated among the faculty, and placed upon office bulletin boards, and in diaries. In writing these brochures the girls applied the knowledge they had gained in studying the writing of advertis.e.m.e.nts.

Two ill.u.s.trated advertis.e.m.e.nts made in one cla.s.s were displayed in other high schools; a number were sent in an envelope with tickets to patrons and distinguished friends of the schools. One cla.s.s wrote letters to firms of wholesale silk merchants and importers, advertising _The G.o.ddess of the Woven Wind_, the story of silk.

In order to increase the sale of tickets and to prepare an appreciative audience, various subjects were suggested to English teachers for projects in cla.s.s work connected with the plays. In many cla.s.ses every girl wrote and ill.u.s.trated a paper on some topic pertaining to Chinese life, such as customs, costumes, religion, occupations, silk, China, umbrellas, fireworks, fans, position of women, objects of art. Oral compositions were devoted to phases of some of these subjects. In the oral work and in the written composition, accurate knowledge of authorities consulted was insisted upon. Chinese proverbs were studied. "A man knows, but a woman knows better," used by the author in her play, was one of the most popular ones. Translations, found in the _Literary Digest_, of Chinese poems of the sixteenth and of the eighteenth century were produced and read by the girls, many of whom brought to cla.s.s all the Chinese articles they could find at home. Incense burners, fans, pitchers, embroideries, chop sticks, beads, shoes, vases, and even a Chinese newspaper, found their way to the cla.s.s-room and were exhibited with pride. Interest in things Chinese was so great that clippings and prints continued coming in for almost two weeks after the play had been presented. Cla.s.s visits were made to the Chinese exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to importing houses in the neighborhood.

The kind of co-operation described has led in some schools to the establishment of workshops similar to those conducted in connection with certain university courses in playwriting and dramatics and with many of the Little Theatres. A paragraph that appeared recently in a calendar of the New York Drama League explains in a convincing way the necessity for a workshop in connection with all amateur producing.

"One of the most vital problems that the amateur group has to solve,"

says the writer, "is that of securing a proper place for the preparing of a production. Not all organizations can hold rehearsals, paint scenery, experiment with lighting on costumes and scenery on the stage on which they are finally to play. Even where this is possible, it is costly. Much of the activity is now carried on in the homes of members so far as rehearsals go; in barns or garages as regards the painting of scenery and not at all so far as the lighting question is concerned. More often than not, a few hasty final rehearsals are relied upon to pull into shape some of the most important elements of a satisfactory performance.

"The remedy lies in the acquisition of a workshop. A large room with a very high ceiling will serve admirably. But you must be able to work recklessly in it, sawing wood, hammering nails, mussing things up generally with paint and riddling the walls and ceiling with hooks and screws to hang lighting apparatus and other properties. An old-fashioned barn can be converted into an ideal workshop, if provision is made for proper heating. All the activity should be concentrated in the workshop and there is no reason why all the experimentalists cannot be at work at once--the carpenters, the scene painters, the electricians, the property men, and even the actors with their director."

The use of miniature model stages is becoming more and more common in the schools, the preliminary model serving the workshop, until the background, lighting, properties, and costumes are completed. It is an excellent thing for schools to start a collection of models of famous theatres and notably successful stage-sets. The material for these exists in ill.u.s.trated books and magazines and in the ma.s.s of descriptive material in regard to the stage that is now being published.[21]

[Footnote 21: There is a comprehensive list of books published by the Public Library of New York that is an indispensable guide to amateurs interested in Little Theatres and play production and in matters connected with lighting, scenery, costumes, and theatre building; it is W. B. Gamble, _The Development of Scenic Art and Stage Machinery_, New York, 1920. Cf. also the articles of Irving Pichel that have appeared from time to time in _The Theatre Arts Magazine_.

The three following books are especially valuable for school theatres: Barrett H. Clark, _How to Produce Amateur Plays_, Boston, 1917; Constance D'Arcy Mackay, _Costumes and Scenery for Amateurs_. _A Practical Working Handbook_, New York, 1915 (the ill.u.s.trations are especially valuable); and Evelyn Hilliard, Theodora McCormick, Kate Oglebay, _Amateur and Educational Dramatics_, New York, 1917.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Interior of the Beechwood Theatre.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Exterior of the Beechwood Theatre.]

Two school theatres designed especially for the purpose of fostering in the schools to which they are attached an interest in the drama are the Garden Theatre of the high school at Montclair, New Jersey, and the Beechwood Theatre in the private school at Scarborough-on-Hudson, New York, built by Frank A. Vanderlip. At Montclair the present high school building was completed in 1914. To the northeast of the building at that time was a ravine which afforded a natural amphitheatre. The site was perfect, and a gift from a public-spirited citizen, Mrs. Henry Lang, made it possible to create on this spot a very artistic and beautiful place for outdoor performances, either plays or pageants.

On the slope nearest the building are semi-circular rows of concrete seats accommodating about fifteen hundred people. A brook spanned by two arched bridges separates the audience from the stage. Back of the turf stage is a graveled stage slightly raised and reached by two flights of steps. The pergola and trees make a beautiful background.

The house in the rear is a part of the plant and is used for dressing and make-up.

The Beechwood Theatre within the school has a proscenium opening of twenty-seven feet and a stage depth, back to the plaster horizon, of the same dimensions. There are two complete sets of drapery, one of coa.r.s.e ecru linen and one of blue velvet; there is also a stock drawing-room set of thirty pieces. Back of the stage are ten dressing-rooms. The lighting arrangements are extraordinarily complete: the theatre has a standard electrical equipment of footlights and borders and a switchboard of the best type to which has recently been added the latest lighting devices, consisting of an X-ray border, the end section of which is on a separate dimmer, a thousand-watt centre floodlight, six five-hundred watt-spotlights, each on separate dimmers, in the false proscenium or tormentor,[22]

and a line of one-thousand-watt floodlights for lighting the plaster sky. All of this recently added equipment is controlled from a separate portable switchboard.

[Footnote 22: For the explanation of this and kindred technical terms, see Arthur Edwin Krows, _Play Production in America_, New York, 1916.

Cf. Maurice Browne, _The Temple of a Living Art_. _The Drama_, Chicago, 1913, No. 12, p. 168: "Nor is this just a question of stage jargon; that man or woman who would establish an Art Theatre that is an Art Theatre and not a pet rabbit fed by hand, must be able to design it, to ventilate it, to decorate it, to equip its stage, to light it (and to handle its lighting himself, or his electricians will not listen to him), to plan his costumes and scenery, aye, and at a shift, to make them with his own hand."]

Though this plant was built primarily for the school, it is used also by the Beechwood Players, a Little Theatre organization, and by other community clubs which comprise an orchestra, a chorus, a group interested in the fine arts, and a poetry circle. Mr. Vanderlip looks forward to the development of a school of the arts of the theatre from the nucleus of the Beechwood community clubs. With this idea in mind he has just built a workshop for the Beechwood Players in a separate building. It contains power woodworking machines, and rooms for painting scenery and for the costume department, the latter containing power sewing machines.

There is no doubt but that these two schools have unique facilities for developing an interest in the acted drama. But artistic results have often been secured in the school theatre with equipment falling far short of the ideal standards achieved at Montclair and at Scarborough. Other less fortunate schools are, moreover, at no particular disadvantage when it comes to the cla.s.s-room study of the drama for which this book is primarily planned, this work being the first step in the direction of a more intelligent att.i.tude toward modern plays and modern theatres. A cla.s.s-room reading of modern plays without any accessories, as Shakespeare is often read from the seats and the aisles, is one of the most practical methods of speech and voice improvement. Louis Calvert, the eminent actor, speaking of this kind of training says: "After all it is one of the simplest things in the world to learn to speak correctly, to take thought and begin and end each word properly.... A little attention to one's everyday conversation will often work wonders. If one schools himself for a while to speak a little more slowly, and to give each syllable its due, it is surprising how naturally and rapidly his speech will clarify. If we take care of the consonants, the vowels will take care of themselves."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ravine where the Garden Theatre was built.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Garden Theatre.]

At the present time, then, the theatre in the schools means a variety of things. It means first and foremost, as suggested by the latest college entrance requirements, the study of modern plays, side by side with the cla.s.sics. It means also the improvement of English speech, through the interpretation and the reading aloud of the text. It means a study of the new art of the theatre such as the present book suggests. It means often the presentation of plays before outside audiences and the consequent strengthening of the ties that should exist between the school and the community. It may mean the co-operation of several departments of the school in the production; and, in this case, it usually results in the establishment of some kind of a workshop. And finally, in certain favored schools, it means the erection of model Little Theatres. It seems fair to suppose that this newly aroused interest in modern drama and in modern methods of production in the schools will have far-reaching results.

BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN[23]

By BOOTH TARKINGTON

[Footnote 23: Copyright, 1912, by Harper and Brothers.

Copyright in Great Britain. All acting rights both amateur and professional reserved by the author.]

Since the days of Edward Eggleston, Indiana has been acc.u.mulating literary traditions until at the present time it rivals New England in the variety of its literary a.s.sociations. Newton Booth Tarkington, born in Indianapolis in 1869, and continuing to make his home there still in the old family house on North Pennsylvania Street, is one of the most distinguished of the Hoosier writers. As a lad of eleven he began his friendship with James Whitcomb Riley, then a neighbor. "He acknowledges (shaking his head in reflection at the depth of it) that the spirit of Riley has exercised over him a strong, if often unconsciously felt, influence all his life." The delicious stories of Penrod and of the William Sylva.n.u.s Baxter of _Seventeen_ that Booth Tarkington has told for the unalloyed delight of old and young are said to reproduce quite accurately the author's recollection of his own boyhood pranks and a.s.sociations in the Middle-Western city of his birth. Tarkington went first to Phillips Exeter Academy and later to Purdue University at Lafayette, Indiana, before he became a member of the cla.s.s of '93 at Princeton. His popularity and his good fellowship are still cherished memories on the campus.

It seems that he was infallibly a.s.sociated in the undergraduate mind with the singing of _Danny Deever_; so much so, that whenever he appeared on the steps at Na.s.sau Hall there would be an immediate demand for his speciality, a demand that often caused him to retire as inconspicuously as possible from the crowd. These old days are commemorated in the following verses, a copy of which, framed, hangs on the walls of the Princeton Club in New York.

RONDEL

"The same old Tark--just watch him shy Like hunted thing, and hide, if let, Away behind his cigarette, When 'Danny Deever' is the cry.