Life — April 30, 1903 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-LIFE- consequence, it finds itself without plays for its machine-made stars and obliged to deny the ambitions of others to whom it had promised its questionable glories. As yet neither our leading universities, nor the correspondence schools which teach almost everything in a few lessons sent by mail, have devoted their energics to the education of play-writers It is doubtless true that the dramatist, like the poet, is born, not made, but if our general writers would turn their attention to the technical side of stage-writing,we might, at this juncture, not be so absolutely poverty-stricken in the matter of good plays. The truth is that those who can write don't know anything about the stage, and those who know anything about the stage can’t write. If they of the stage could get over their contempt for the purely land His Money " at the Madi- literary person, and they of literature would admit to themselves Square. These would be much _ thatactable plays depend upon something more than literary merit, more numerous if the original inten- the two kinds of knowledge might be brought together to the ad- tion had been carried out and vantage of every one concerned, and especially of the theatre-going the leading réle had been given public. Metcalfe, to Mr, William Collier in- st of to Mr, Jameson Lee Finney. This is not so much a reflection on Mr. Finney’s ability as a des 1 of the part, wh adapted to Mr. Collier's personal- ity. The youth here por- trayed is just a trifle too virile for Mr. Finney methods, and the various trials and tribulations to which he is subjected in his attempts to dovetail ack appetite into a ham-sandwich condition of his treasury would have been most hu y depicted by Mr. Collier's sang froid and appreciation of the ridiculous. With the exception of Mr. Arnold Daly makes the part of cunious Freneli shable, the cast isa weak one, and it is surprising that it is able to make so much fun with Mr. Broadhurst’s piece as it does. . ° ° TL HIS is the psychological moment for dramatists who can write even passably clean comedy. ‘The evide joyment of the audiences at such a slender effort as Fool and His Money” shows the trend of popular fancy. The public has evidently been overdosed with musical comedy and society plays. The former, with its scant supply of comedians and clever librettists, is beginning to pall even on those theatre-goers who have found in it t kind of entertainment suited to their not over-cultivated palates. The society play has degenerated into such thin- ness of material that not even its veneering of society methods and manners can hide its lack of real vitality. the other hand, the clever fun of ‘* The Earl of Pawtuel has made that piece one of the greatest popular and financial successes of the season. Just whence are to come the dramatists who are to supply this demand it is not easy to see. ‘1 Theatrical Trust which depe 5 cesses for its material, has drag-netted both England and the Continent, only to secure a succession of failures. Its bringing ‘A Message from Mars" and “* Mumoy and the Humming Bird” back to Broadway shows to what straits it is reduced. It has done nothing to encourage native authors—in fact, it has Of0, ADE. done everything in its power to kill them off—and, as a By the Sultan of Si comicbooks.com