Professor Holter: Red, you mean. Elizabeth [Her head on one side, she calculates]: Not in the sun.

Professor Holter: call it auburn.

be aware of his presence, clasps her hands to her heart, and rushing in from the balcony, shuts the windows with a dramatic air, holding the knobs as if to prevent the professor from

Elizabeth: Poor Jack! They say he has never got over my marriage. [She sighs and wags her head.] I really must be a little good to him.

Professor Holter [Affecting a casual manner]: Well, look here, Chick, old lady, I don't want to interfere with your choice of friends, but if I were you, I wouldn't be seen going around with young Wiley. Of course, I'm not a bit jealous, but everyone knows he used to beer-very devoted.

Elizabeth [She gives him a sly glance]: Quite lost his head, didn't he?

Professor Holter [He sneers somewhat savagely]: If you can call that a head Nature put on to keep him from ravelling out.

Elizabeth [Insinuatingly]: Perhaps you'll change your mind and take me yourself?

I

Professor Holter [With an air of finality as he crosses to his desk]: Impossible! must attend to my work.

Elizabeth [Annoyed]: You won't take me? Professor Holter [He arranges his papers as he stand]: I cannot.

Elizabeth [More intensely]: You won't? Professor Holter [Finally]: I won't. [The telephone rings]

Elizabeth:

Perhaps that's Jack now.

He was going to call me up.

Professor Holter [He turns and crosses to right quickly]: I think it's Chetwode. Elizabeth [Going]: I'm sure it's Jack. Professor Holter: You needn't go. I know it's Chetwode. [He hurries.]

Elizabeth [Trying to get to the door first]: Save your trouble. I'm sure it's Jack.

Professor Holter [He puts Elizabeth aside]: If it is, I'll let you know.

Elizabeth: You won't let me answer the phone?

Professor Holter: I'm quite competent to answer it in my own house. [He goes out.]

Elizabeth: Well, I never.

[She stands staring after him indignantly, then crosses to the desk and looks down at the paper viciously. Suddenly she grabs the dictionary, throws it violently to the floor and kicks it heartily around until it lands under the sofa. She drops onto the sofa and begins to cry. Suddenly she sits up; her impish look returns. She looks sly as she rises, stuffing her handkerchief in her mouth as she chokes back her glee. She tip-toes to the door and cautiously opens it a few inches. The professor's voice

is heard.

Shutting the door, she goes up back to the balcony. As if addressing a crowd outside, she speaks with free gestures.] Elizabeth: Friends, Romans, countrymen, am I a slave? Not on your life I'm not. Beware, Hoddy Holter-beware, Mr. Fillysoffer the worm will turn. [With an exaggerated gesture] I swear! [She responds to imaginary applause with several deep bows. As she kisses her hand to the imaginary audience, a sudden thought strikes her. She goes into fits of laughter, as she leans over the balcony Juliet-like, throwing kisses to an imaginary Romeo below. She leans against the side of the window to laugh] Wouldn't Hoddy be furious? I'm going to-I just will. [She listens as if to hear whether the professor is coming. She then shades her eyes with her hand as if looking off for some one, kisses her hands eagerly, listens for the professor, then runs to the door and opening it, listens. She runs back to the balcony and is throwing kisses madly to the imaginary person below when the door opens and the professor enters. As he closes the door, he sees Elizabeth. He stares, not comprehending, then with a frown he hurries

Elizabeth: I'm afraid I'm dreadfully unladylike but he's such a perfect gentleman.

Professor Holter: The brute! Your ardor betrayed the feeling you have for him! Never for me did you show such passion.

Elizabeth [Weeping]: It-it would have interfered with your writing.

Professor Holter: What do I care for my

pet names.

Elizabeth: Your work on political economy

-?

Professor Holter [Shaken out of his sedate calm]: Ah, how it absorbed me! It was to bring me fame that you might be proud of me! Perhaps money, so that I could buy you some of the pretty things you had before you married me. I swear it was no selfish motive prompted me to the task. I was thinking all the time

Elizabeth: I never

Professor Holter [He turns wearily away]: I know I know! You never cared for my

Professor Holter: You are mighty afraid of my seeing-[scornfully]-nobody. Elizabeth: It might be bad for your eyes --and think of your work!

Professor Holter: Fear makes you silly. [He takes a stride.] I will see.

Elizabeth [Theatrically, she sways about, holding onto the knobs]: Never-never-not as long as my strength holds out.

Professor Holter: Ha! If I use forceElizabeth [Feigning faintness]: You'd never hurt a lady.

Professor Holter: You take advantage of my manhood. [Elizabeth, with a fetching smile, holds out her hands pleadingly to him. Folding his arms as if to keep them from temptation, he speaks sternly.] How long has this been going on?

Elizabeth: Only a-a short time.

Professor Holter: How can I believe you? Elizabeth: Hod-er-er-Mr. Filly-er-er[She gives a dismal wail as if driven nearly mad by the futility of her quest for a name.] Oh-h-Henry Holter, Esquire, believe me! Professor Holter [He turns away]: And we've been married only six months! That's a very short time.

Elizabeth: Alas-alas!

The honeymoon

is over! [She grins at his back.] Professor Holter [He turns to her and she assumes her tragic manner]: The truth is you never loved me.

Elizabeth: Oh-h-hProfessor Holter: Then why did you marry me? I'm no great match. A poor professor in a small college-you a beautiful girl surrounded with admirers. I, a man, old grayheaded-I should never have married you. Elizabeth [She pretends to weep, then looks at him psuedo-pathetically]: D-do you want a d-divorce?

Professor Holter [Rushing to her]: It can't have come to that unless that sweet face masks a heart full of guile!

Elizabeth [Sobbing]: I never even use pow

Professor Holter [He drops into a chair, his hands limp between his knees]: A butterfly harnessed to a plow! Yes, that's what I've done to you taken the fairy thing and made it a drudge. I never thought. I was like a child who sees the lovely thing fluttering about him and pursues and captures it. I wanted you-never had I wanted anything as I wanted you. Even the rewards of scholarship for which I had spent my life-not even these had I wanted as I wanted you. Elizabeth: Always always? Do you al

ways want me?
Professor Holter: Every moment!
would heaven itself be without you?

What

Elizabeth: And yet you objected just now to such a little thing as my feet in your lap! Professor Holter: My darling's little feet that should always dance along rosy pathways. Elizabeth: They only want to dance a little at Mrs. Johnson's party.

Professor Holter: You mock meno wonder! I'm far far too old and sad for a bright thing like you. [He covers his eyes roith his hand. She runs to him and puts her arms around his neck, her cheek against his. Realizing that he is weak, he submits for the moment.] Oh-h-h-----[He jumps up, releasing her, and she falls to the ground.] How weak

I am!

Elizabeth: If you are, you needn't drop me like a hot potato!

Professor Holter: Forgive me! [He extends his hand. I haven't hurt you?

Elizabeth [She springs up unassisted]: Am I all right at the back?

Professor Holter [With great dejection]: Yes, it looks all right to me. Forgive my roughness. (He sighs deeply, crosses to the sofa, and, dropping into it heavily, he looks woefully into space.] This must stop. Yesyes it must be ended. I have no right to keep you bound. Yes, there must be a divorce. Elizabeth: Wh-a-at?

Professor Holter: It's the only way-I see

that.

Elizabeth: Just because I-er-kissed my hand to er-a-an old friend?

A mere nonentity-that's what I call him. [She gleams mischievously.] But Professor Holter [Turning away]: youth calls to youth. I cannot blame you.

Elizabeth [She is moved, but not enough to reveal her duplicity]: Hoddy, don't care for-er-him [Waving her hand toward the window] a little bit.

Professor Holter: But if-ah, if you were free!

(Continued on page 33)

Were I the distributor of halos in the anthology department of books dealing with the drama, the choicest and most becoming aureole would be given to Montrose J. Moses who has added to a worthy and useable series Representative American Dramas, National and Local (Little, Brown and Company). The plays included in the volume range from Charles Hoyt's A Texas Steer, produced in 1894, to The Show-off, by George Kelly, 1924. To the student of drama the thirtyyear development in the making of plays in America is of vital interest. Mr. Moses in his introduction, and in the foreword to each play is encyclopedic in the informing material he offers and in his analysis of the individual play as an example of its period and, as such, of its worth.

In addition to A Texas Steer and The Show-off, the volume contains The Girl of the Golden West, by David Belasco; The Witching Hour, by Augustus Thomas; Clyde Fitch's The City, which in 1910 was considered a bit shocking because it contained a profane epithet; Percy MacKaye's The Scarecrow; The Piper, the Stratford Memorial Prize Play by Josephine Preston Peabody; Mrs. Bumstead-Leigh, by Harry James Smith, a successful vehicle for Mrs. Fiske in 1911; It Pays to Advertise, by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter Hackett; James Forbes' The Famous Mrs. Fair; Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones; Nice People, by Rachel Crothers; The Detour, by Owen Davis; Dulcy, by George Kaufman and Marc Connelly; and Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine.

If you have not in your library Mr. Moses' Representative British Dramas and his Representative Continental Dramas, you should order them when you put in your order for Representative American Dramas. The three volumes are indispensable, the last especially so to the student of American play evolution.

This being the open season for anthologies, it gives one satisfaction to bring down such good game as that put before him by Thomas H. Dickinson and Jack R. Crawford in Contemporary Plays (Houghton Mifflin Company). When I say that the selection has been made with discretion and sound judgment, it means merely that I approve of it. You may not. I am more fond of Stephen Phillips Herod than I am of his Paolo and Francesca, which is in this volume. Regardless of preference as to play, the fact remains that Phillips had a delicate appreciation of beauty and romance coupled with the gift of transmitting it into gold for the theatre. Many of the other English plays included in the collection have not been seen in America. In this portion of the list are Granville-Barker's The Voysey Inheritance; The Cassilis Engagement, by St. John Hankin, which has had production by stock companies and is worthy of more extended presentation; and Drinkwater's Oliver Cromwell. John Glayde's Honor, by Alfred Sutro, a play that merited more recognition than it had here; Githa Sowerby's Rutherford and Son, Hubert Henry Davies' The Mollusc, a delightful comedy seen here in revival with Miss Alexandra Carlisle and George Arliss in the leading rôles; Chains, by Elizabeth Baker; Maugham's The Circle, in which Mrs. Leslie Carter, John Drew, and, in the original American company, Miss Estelle Winwood appeared; and Stanley Houghton's sturdy Hindle Wakes, make up the list of plays by English dramatists that have been produced in the United States. The plays by American writers are Kindling, by Charles Kenyon, in which Miss Margaret Illington won favor; Louis Anspacher's The Unchastened Woman; The Adding Machine, an expressionistic drama by Elmer L. Rice; Mary the Third, by Rachel Crothers; Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape and Icebound, by Owen Davis.

You will find this volume an addition to your library whether or not you have seen the plays in production, and especially so if you have neither seen nor read them.

An excellent textbook, handbook, reference book or what you will, is A Study of Modern Drama, by Barrett H. Clark (D. Appleton and Company). Mr. Clark is qualified by a first hand experience with schools, women's clubs and the Drama League of America of which he is a director, to know the sort of material students of the drama desire and the form in which they desire it. His many years abroad engaged in scholarly pursuits connected with the drama, have given him also a fund of intimate knowledge of drama currents of today and of individual dramatists. This material is presented in his new volume with conciseness and at the same time with an ease of style which makes for interesting reading. Each continental country of note is given a section as are also England and America. A very brief general survey is first made, then the leading dramatists are discussed and their most significant plays are outlined. Questions pointing the values of the plays conclude each outline. This feature will appeal strongly to students and study groups.

A compilation which will appeal to many theatre fans as well as to the student, is The Drama Year Book, 1924, edited and published by Joseph Lauren, New York. The playbills of 1923 are included with complete cast and the record of the run. To this is added excerpts from the criticisms of reviewers; actors, great and small, are listed with the record of their parts during the year; and there are other records of plays published in 1923, of dramatic critics and the papers on which they are employed, of producers and directors and their plays, of play agents, of playwrights and their plays, and of little theatre organizations. The whole is a handy reference book and should be issued yearly. Its value would be greatly enhanced, however, if it could be issued more quickly after the close of each year.

Whether interested in the Indians, in folklore or in finding something unusual to produce, Manito Masks, by Hartley Alexander of the University of Nebraska (E. P. Dutton and Company) will delight you. These masks are dramatizations with music of American Indian legends. The native spirit has been maintained with remarkable success both in the rhythms and the choice of detail. There is a simplicity and loftiness in several of them that place them among enduring literature. For production they require little in the way of scenery but they demand much in the way of taste and voice and movement. Given with proper feeling for pantomime -which involves rhythm-with well trained voices, and against a moodful background, an evening with these masks would be an unforgettable experience.

Thomas Dickinson in Playwrights of the New American Theatre (Macmillan) has contributed a valuable study to the year's output of dramatic literature. Beginning with "the playwright as pioneer; Percy MacKaye," the author goes on to discuss O'Neill, Moody, Kennedy, Ade, Sheldon, George Kelly, and many others of the past twenty-five years. The estimate of the work of the individual writer is, of course, valuable, but a greater merit is the sound study of the relation of these writers to the main currents in American life and to the growth of the American theatre. For a succinct understanding of the position of the drama in our native culture, Mr. Dickinson's contribution is to be recommended.

Maude: Listen, Roger. The psychoanalytic drama which is having such a vogue at present is undoubtedly the first step toward a new era in literature, both of the stage and the library. The subconscious mind is a fruitful field awaiting the explorations of the litterati. How does that sound, Roger? [Raising her voice.] Roger, are you asleep again? [Turning around.] Of course. What a simpleton I am to try to rouse you even for a moment! Oh to think that I married you for this! Roger!

Roger [From the realms of slumber]: Huh? Maude: Roger, do you hear?

listening or aren't you?

Are you

Roger: Huh, wha'd you say? [Rousing himself.] Oh, of course dear, of course. I heard every word, very fine, yes, uh-fine.

Maude: You weren't listening at all. As usual, you were dozing. How can you lie there evening after evening and fall asleep over the paper is more than I can understand. Work, eat, sleep, that's all you know.

Roger: Well my dear, what else is there to do? You never care to go anywhere. Tonight I asked you to go with me to that dance at the Carsons and you said you had this paper to prepare. You're always busy with some club work or something.

Maude: Those things bore me to distraction. The average picture show or play or party is a hideous waste of time. Now if one could always be with people who originate, who direct thought

Roger: And those people bore me! Talk of waste of time, to me an evening of psychoanalysis is a total loss and half the time I don't know what they're talking about when they babble of the aura of the subconscious unanimity or whatever it is, I don't understand a word.

Maude: That is quite evident. You publish the fact when you yawn and look sleepy and let your wits wander as you usually do.

It's humiliating to see you half asleep in the midst of a clever and uplifting discussion. I almost die of shame when I see you displaying your stupidity.

Roger: Well my dear, we can't all be clever. I'm a business man, not a cream puff scientist.

Maude: There you go again belittling everything that is beyond your limited comprehension.

Roger: But, hell's bells, I don't see what good this eternal discussion of everybody's complexes is going to do.

Maude: You needn't swear about it.

Roger: Excuse me, but I'll tell the world that it's Chinese to me.

Maude: Don't be vulgar. Your Philistinism is so evident that you needn't flaunt it. If I were you I'd not boast of having taken no pains to keep up with the intellectual progress of the day. Hunting, fishing, dancing-that seems to be your level, but for pity's sake, when you are with my friends, conceal it. Roger: Then for Pete's sake quit dragging me out to these affairs.

Maude: Very well, Roger, henceforth, we go our own ways, you follow your inclinations and I'll follow mine. I have nothing more to say.

Roger: Thank the Lord! [He returns to his paper. Maude writes, changing words, then reading aloud and writing again until Roger falls asleep.]

ap

Maude: "The psycho-analytic which is having such a [Erasing.] which is the vogue at present [Erasing.] which is now the vogue. Much better-[She memorizes and repeats in her artificial tone.]—is no doubt the first step toward [Doubtfully.]—hum-is parently the beginning of a new era-epochno,-era-apparently the beginning of a new era in literature. [Roger sleeps with the paper this time frankly over his face. Fire bells ring.] Fire! Must be nearby. [Crossing to the window.] Perhaps I can see the glare [She turns out the lights and moonlight floods the windows. She looks intently.] Nonothing-it must be in the other direction— [Turning on the lights she sees a man in extremely dapper evening dress standing in arrested attitude at the head of the couch, his coat in his hands.] Maude:

Who are you?

Stranger: Sh, don't wake him! Maude: What are you doing here? Stranger: I was on my way to a danceThe Carsons, you know.

Maude: The Carsons-where Roger wanted to go. Yes, but that doesn't explain your presence here.

Stranger: No hardly, but [She starts to rouse her husband.] You as a student of psychic-literature, should be able to explain

that.

Maude: I?

Stranger: Yes. [Indicating the sleeping Roger.] Subconscious minds, suppressed desires and the like-you know.

Maude: What are you talking about? Whose subconscious mind and suppressed desires?

Stranger: Why, your husband's to be sure. [Putting his hat and coat on a chair at left.] Maude: Who are you? What do you know of his subconscious mind?

Stranger: I am IT.

Maude: You are what?
Stranger: His subconscious mind.
Maude: His subconscious mind!
Stranger: Yes.

Maude: Why-why-this is incredible! [Regarding his clothes and the cigarette case which he has taken out nonchalantly.] I-you -I had no idea a subconscious mind could wear evening clothes and [As he lights a cigarette after a gesture asking permission.] smoke a cigarette! How can one see a subconscious mind?

Stranger: Well, you see, it is quite evident from your conversation a few minutes ago, before-er-Roger, dropped off, that you are just in the mood-attuned as it were, to psychic emanations. As for the cigarette and evening clothes, what more natural than that the subconscious mind should do and wear the things that the conscious mind forbids the body?

Maude: Absurd! Psychologists say the subconscious mind dictates one's acts.

Stranger: Oh, scientists are so arbitrary. They arrange a neat, tidy and plausible explanation for everything and insist that the facts should conform to their solution. Now who should be the better authority on the subconscious mind, the scientist, who writes about it or [Indicating himself.] himself?

Maude: [Bewildered]: Why-ah-.
Stranger: Precisely-himself.

Maude: But you, you don't look like him. Stranger: No that's true, but I look as he wishes he could.

Roger: You used to wear a little silver chain about your neck, the pendant falling inside your dress. Could anyone but Roger tell you what was on that chain?

Maude [Almost whispering]: No.

Roger: I can-it was just a dime-with a hole in it. Do you remember why you wore it? Roger gave it to you once before you were married; when you had lost your purse and you walked home and kept the dime. Isn't that true?

Maude: Yes, but now?

Roger: Doesn't that convince you? shall I give you other proofs

Or

Maude [quickly]: No-no more [Meditatively, as though half convinced.] No one else knows that-and yet-Oh, what can I believe? But why were you going out?

Stranger: My dear, I thought I explained that I am gratifying Roger's suppressed desires. He is keen on people, parties, dances, good clothes and a good smoke, but you are not a social animal.

Maude: Why the idea! How dare you! Stranger: Please! The subconscious mind must have some latitude! You may quarrel with Roger's conscious mind all you like but neither it nor you can control me! [Crushing his cigarette in the ash tray.] As I was saying, you prefer the pursuit of "culture," I believe you call it that. Your social intercourse is confined to the various clubs where you find others like yourself who profess to be students and women who "do things!" Now Roger, as he told you a few moments ago; likes to entertain his friends, to go out among his acquaintances and to theatres and parties. He likes to dance and play cards. But his friends bore you; his pastimes bore you. You refuse to go about with him and he, poor chump is too loyal and too conventional to wander about without you.

Maude: But he never reads, never talks. My friends bore him; we have no companionship, no romance. Everything is dull and drab and flat. Our life is so-stodgy.

Stranger: Of course, the romance of the honeymoon is gone and the poetics and thrills of courtship, but why not adjust yourself to the every day life of the world that you must live in and live it with him as a friend, his comrade? He would meet you more than halfway, if you would only be patient. Show him the way and don't parade your superiority of education over him. You forget that his school days were spent in the struggle for livelihood. While you were finishing abroad, Roger was running an openhearth furnace in a steel plant. After all, have you done so much more, considering your advantages? He is manager now and one of the big men in his line, one of the most important men in the community. You are a fashionable clubwoman of the predigested-food variety. Your club work has no permanent value to yourself, your town or your country. You aren't even a mother.

Maude: How dare you-how dare you talk to me like this, Roger would never say such things to me!

Stranger: No, Roger would never say such things. His conscious mind, his self control, the kindness of his nature have prevented him from telling you his inmost thoughts, until to-night. I've caught him off his guard, now at a time, when you are attuned to see and hear me, and so you hear the truth about yourself and what he thinks of you for once. He will not even tell you that he would like to have children.

Maude: You are unfair. He has never expressed regret that we have no children. He has never critized my mode of life until to-night.

Stranger: Oh, well you see his conscious mind insists that you have a right to live your live as you please. He will not thrust his wishes upon you.

Maude: Why do you say always "he?"

Stranger: Well, you see sometimes the conscious mind by training or hypocrisy or fear of offending conventions, gets so far away from the subconscious mind that their unity is lost. They become really two people inhabiting one body and it is so with Roger and me. He's had a struggle with me sometimes, let me tell you. I've wanted many a time to tell you what I thought of your manner toward him and your injustice and selfishness. Maude: Oh, you never talked to me so when you first married me.

Stranger [Surprised]: When I? Yes, I suppose you might say, I married you but its different now. Now you know, you've divorced me-it's a moral divorce. You see, don't you?

Maude: No, no, how can you say that? We get on very well, as a rule. I'll admit, of course, dear, [The Stranger recoils slightly from the affectionate epithet.] that there was a time when we jangled a bit, but you'll agree that we get on rather well now. You have your work and I have mine-divorce is so-so unnecessary. Of course, if either of us cared very much for someone else but we don't.

Stranger [Hurriedly]: Well, we needn't discuss that now. That sort of thing I must leave to Roger to handle anyway. But you didn't get the idea. What I mean to say is, you have divorced me. You have put me away from you. You didn't want that [Pointing to Roger, who moves slightly ands sighs.] You didn't want Roger and that phase of Roger, which the everyday world knows and you didn't sense me waiting for you down there below his surface, only waiting for you to call to me and [With tender regret.] Maude, I wanted to come.

Maude [Spell-bound]: And at last you have come. Now I know why I did not cry out when I saw you to-night. There's something within me that knew you. Sometimes when Roger and I were looking at some beautiful picture together or when we've been sitting alone in the evening, I've felt a vague something, like [Struggling to describe it.]—like a voiceless cry. It was you calling to me-trying to make me understand.

Stranger [Not heeding the interruption]: But Roger, poor soul didn't know how to tell you, to let you see. He knows only dimly himself what is within him; he feels only that dull pain, that inarticulate struggle and doesn't know it is his inmost soul that longs to speak.

Maude [Breathless]: Roger-my dear! Stranger: That is true of most of us poor wretches in the world, we are inclosed in the prisons of our enviroment and only those who are free, who have found themselves can understand and pity and set us free.

Maude: Roger, I've been so selfish, I never understood until now!

Stranger: I used to long, oh how desperately, Maude, that you might understand.

Maude: But it is not to late, dear. I will help. I will be kinder. Oh Roger, if I had only known.

Stranger: Well of course, it's a pity, but that's all in the past now. I must say Roger and I have been proud of your successes and your charm and cleverness, and the home you have created for us is a great satisfaction to

me.

Maude [Penitently]: I'm so glad you've had that much happiness in spite of my-my wickedness.

Stranger: Narrowness my dear, only narrowness. [Soothingly.] But don't let it trouble you now: there is no need.

Maude: You'll forgive me? We'll begin again and try to make our lives what they should have been.

Stranger: As for forgiveness, you need not be forgiven for finding poor old Roger a bore. He bores me sometimes too, but I can only get away from him when he's asleep. afraid it's too late now, to begin again. You see we've changed and grown apart. We're

I'm

Of

getting along very comfortably, except for your little occasional flurries of nerves. course, they bewilder poor Roger and make him rather uncomfortable, but they don't last long and I have other things to think of now, so I don't notice them particularly.

Maude: But now that I do understand you, now that you have shown me the way, I'll reach out my hands to you and we'll go on together. We'll go back to where we were seven years ago. Don't you remember, Roger, the camp in the Maine woods where we began our life together? Close your eyes, dear, and see the path of moonlight that we followed in our canoe into the enchanted land. Roger tell me that you remember.

Stranger: Why yes, [Wishing himself out of this sentimental scene] yes, it was delightful wasn't it?

Maude [Trying to win him back]: It was heavenly. Oh Roger, do you remember the silence of the woods and the beauty of the pinescented hours when we sat beneath those glorious trees and you told me that you had always loved me, that from the creation of the world your soul had sought mine and would cling to mine throughout eternity?

Stranger: Yes it does effect some chaps that way for a time. Old Roger did wax rather poetic, on a few occasions-the times when he let me rise to the surface and have my innings. I wonder where we got that stuff.

Maude [Tenderly]: From your heart. Roger, take me in your arms and say those wonderful things to me again; tell me that you love me still, that you will always love me. I must have you back.

Stranger [Evasively and looking down at Roger]: Well, I suppose Roger will meet you halfway. He's really a very amiable old chap. Excuse me [He looks at his watch.] By Jove it's later than I thought. [He moves toward the chair to take his hat, but returns without it.]

Maude: But, dear it is you; you that I want to win back. Not only the outer semblance of Roger, but the real true, inward Roger. The Roger that held me close and whispered that nothing should part us evermore: that in life and death we should be one. [During this speech the Stranger looks embarrassed and somewhat amused.]

Stranger [Trying to divert the sentimental trend of the conversation]: And now as a matter of fact, we are three [Indicating in tic-tac-toe fashion, Roger, Maude, and himself.]

Maude: No, no Roger, you can't say that: it isn't true. We have wandered far, I know, but such love as ours was, must survive. Such things cannot perish, can they Roger? [He lights a cigarette deliberately. Terrified at his silence, she wails.] Can they?

Stranger: I'm afraid my dear, they sometimes do. Pick up any daily paper and see.

Maude: But dear, those people did not truly love as we do. Not a really great love like ours.

Stranger: Well, as a matter of fact I suppose they thought it was in the beginning. Maude: Oh Roger, don't speak so coldly, Say you will try to love me again! What's the use: I may as well tell you Maude. There's someone else now. She is startled.] I am sorry you forced me to tell you.

so cynically! Stranger:

Maude: Roger, how can you stand there and tell me such a thing? How dare she? Who is the woman? [With increasing anger.] Stranger: I can't tell, there's no good in dragging her into this.

Maude: Well, if you'll not tell, I'll ask him. Moving toward the lounge.]

Stranger: Don't! [His tone stops her.] He doesn't know, and of course neither does she. I'm the only one that is concerned in this. You'll have to solve that for yourself. I tell you that I love, very deeply, a charming woman. That Roger, so far, knows nothing about it. I've not yet presented my case (Continued on page 36)

Vol. 2

Ο

No. 1

NE of the greatest taxes on the ingenuity of Little Theatre directors is the planning of programs for meetings other than those for the major productions. No question is raised more often at the Drama League Headquarters and in courses on Little Theatre Management, than the one asking about suggestions for activities with which a group may occupy itself during the intervals between productions, or for those people who are not occupied by the current production. Settlement centres, college and university clubs, Drama League centres, drama clubs, and college and school dramatic clubs are always after new and interesting ideas for their meetings.

It is difficult to arrange a definite program good for all groups, so undoubtedly not everything suggested in this article will suit your situation, but there are many suggestions, and a goodly number may prove applicable to your particular needs and desires.

Continuous activity is necessary for Little Theatres, because the successful ones keep many people busy and hence interested. The strength of a community theatre may be measured by the number of people actively engaged in its enterprises. The wisely run theatre does not use constantly in its major productions the same group of actors, and yet the director ought to keep his best actors occupied as constantly as they desire, so that they may feel themselves a part of the organization, and hence may not stray away in spirit, and perhaps even in body to act, to other organizations. Then, again, many of the younger groups spend all or nearly all of their income from membership fees on their three or four major productions, and more entertainment is due their members in return for their membership fees than the public productions afford. Accordingly, the directors are constantly trying to plan meetings with some sort of entertainment which will give the members more for their dues. The suggestions which follow are arranged to provide activities that cost little or nothing. Theoretically and actually the well organized and developed Little Theatre should be the centre of dramatic study and activity in the community, and should house all phases of the work, either directly or indirectly. It should develop all tastes and abilities in its effort to awaken and intensify, to encourage and increase, to improve and popularize, the interest in the American Theatre. This is not done solely by perfected and specialized public productions. Many people interested in drama and the theatre, do not care to perform in public or perhaps to perform at all. Again, many who are not sufficiently able actors, or who have not had the necessary experience, like to act and desire the opportunity to perform occasionally, but they cannot be used to represent the group to the general public. The interest and ambitions of all such can, however, easily be taken care of in the regular meetings. The Little Theatre, which is fulfilling its purpose of stimulating social activity in its community, is bound to resort to informal meetings in order to exercise its socializing powers. Bureaus of Recreation established by many cities to conduct playgrounds and produce an occasional pageant (among other functions, fail to take advantage of their opportunities if they do not continue the

work in the community with a definite and regular series of dramatic meetings. Of late years the Public Welfare Service and Social Service groups have sent directors into communities to produce pageants, in order to promote the socializing forces of a community. After the pageant is over, they have left, and the organization which assisted them dies for lack of activity. After every community pageant, the participants should be organized by the promoters into either one group or many, which should continue to meet regularly to carry on such informal programs as are here outlined, until they are ready to organize as a definite Little Theatre with public performances. In this way is the ideal behind community pageants made lasting and permanent. There is little need to convince the dramatic directors and faculty advisers in university and school, of the necessity of developing this work. The bi-monthly meeting of the dramatic club exists as an exhausting actuality. Hence, with an ideal as well as a practical purpose, should the board of directors definitely include informal and private activities for their members.

These can be your main divisions to the type of work: (1) Play-reading, Study, and Play-writing; (2) The Workshop Laboratory; (3) Informal Performances; and (4) Social Events, including professional lectures. No group need devote itself to only one of these for a season. They may vary the meetings so that all four are covered, thereby gaining great variety and contrast. They may divide all the participants into four sectional groups. Sometimes it is wise to divide the activities and meetings geographically. Where the participants are scattered over a large territory, and the meetings are held in the evening, a sectional division meeting in private homes is a very wise procedure. If all the groups meet simultaneously, each may maintain its own regular meeting place and membership. Or the entire membership may be divided and have separate courses on different nights, so that any one member can meet all four, should he so desire. For example: First Monday in each month-the Drama Study Group; Second Monday-The Workshop Laboratory; Third Monday-Informal productions;

Fourth Monday-A Lecture Course.

Few would attend all groups, and four meetings a month are not recommended, except with a very large membership. With great numbers and enthusiasm, such would be a good division. I shall work out in some detail each one of these four activities.

(1) Reading, Study, and Play-writing

In every community there are some public readers, and there are teachers of expression in the schools and in private studios. The Little Theatre has neglected these people more

*Editor's Note: In a separate article to be published in our Novemissue, Professor Dean will discuss the workshop laboratory, informal performances, and social events. The two articles together will outline with practical and detailed suggestions a year's program of activity. Both articles are selections from a chapter in Little Theatre Organization and Management, by Alexander Dean, which will be published by Appleton and Company.