THE blunt prow of the river-boat crept through the rapidly darkening waters of the North River. The panting coolies, exhausted by the turbulent passage through the rapids, laid their glistening bodies down on the wet deck for a brief period of rest. The riverboat, thus left to its own choosing, aimlessly wandered down the river. The dim, blue mountains receded in the swiftly approaching mists. The cool, damp breezes gently fanned the heavy sails of the boats. Sensual night seduced the twittering birds and the buzzing dragonflies into languorous silences, broken only by the chanting of the boatmen as they resumed their duty and the crackle of the waves against the relentless bulk of the advancing junk. On the uneven and treacherous banks of this fateful river were the elusive shadows of the peasant maidens trying to thread their needles of good-fortune with the threads of their future. Here the joyous laughter of the successful blended with the outbursts of those not so fortunate. Through the enveloping, softly falling rain, the jewel notes of the flute faintly accompanied the fresh, young voice of the dusky dancing girl as she sang, glittering head pillowed on a thousand cushions.
"Over the chain of giant peaks, The great, reel sun goes down, And in the stealthy floods of night
The distant valleys drown.
"Yon moon that cleaves the gloomy pines
Has freshness in her train. Low wind, faint stream, and waterfall Haunt me with their refrain."
The eager voice of the son broke the enchantment. "Father, why are those maidens trying so hard to thread their needles?"
"My son," answered the father patiently. "It is the time of the
Seveneve. Now the maidens who threads her needle will become skilled in all handiwork."
"Why?" persisted the young hopeful.
"That is a long story , but to tell you briefly ... the divine lady who weaves gives it to the happy maiden in thanks for the many gifts that she has offered her tonight."
"Tell me the story, honorable father. " His black, youthful eyes lit up in anticipation, for father was a teacher who knew everything. The old man sat back comfortably with satisfied pride. He settled himself leisurely .and took one last, loving pull at his pipe before he began.
"The god -of-the-sun was beaming happily down on the beautiful home of the Father-of-Heaven. The white marble shone under his gaze as it rambled through the magic gardens. Over the rippling waters of the canal stood the great bridge with its nine arches made of white marble gleaming like the snow on White Cloud . The jade waters of the canal flowed into the limped waters of the lotus lake. Here the pale wisteria , sturdy azealia , and the showy larkspur dwelt together as happy friends. Intermingled with the many colored flowers grew the delicate ferns of infinite variety and the delicious black and white mulberries. On a small island in the lake stood the aged temple with its gongs of jade and the flower pagoda. The divine melodies of the imperial nightingale echoed from the walls of the pagoda covered with vines and flowers. Between the buildings rose the huge, weeping willow, which is the father of all slender, pliant willows. (Its tears supplied the royal, yellow river.)
"In the vermillion throne hall, the Father-of-Heaven , with an anxious eye, repeatedly searched the door leading to his wife's rooms. Suddenly his eye wavered, stopped, and remained fixed on the door. A servant girl had come out of the house and was taking a small object out of her pocket. The Father-of-Heaven waited with bated breath . With apparent studied deliberateness the servant girl made her preparations. (Would it be a bow with four arrows or a small handkerchief ?) There it was! A small handkerchief, like a tuft of red hung fluttering in the breeze ... it was a girl. A sigh of relief escaped as his handsome face relaxed . . . there was no white streamer, his wife was all right . Quickly bowing and excusing himself, he retired from the hall.
"The young girl-child was the seventh of his daughters. As the Father-of-Heaven looked at the tiny child of his blood, her groping
hand fastened on his. The baby hand, with its slender, fragile fingers, gripped hard and the rosebud mouth opened wide With astonishing volume , the youngster asserted her authority. The Father-ofHeaven laughed and bade the old nurse take the child back to the sleeping mother. To celebrate his happiness, he sent the refreshing rain down to help our crops .
"That night there wa s much rejoicing in the home of a lowly, mortal cowherd. On his house were many streamers of bright red, flying in the four directi ons, and on his door hung a scarlet bow with four arrows . His rebellious cattle were allowed to wait outside of his rude home made of decayed bamboo. In side he was kneeling beside his wife, wonderingly admiring his heir, a stalwart young son to carry on his name
"It was late that night when he went to feed the cattle. T he moon was directly overhead , throwing its glimmering waves on the cowherd and his charges. All of his cows were huddled in a black mass, save one. Standing apart, the animal glowed with a pale, silver light in the hugeness of the night. The cowherd was afraid and his face blanched. Turning to go fo r the village priest, he was halted by the low voice of the cow.
" 'Keep me. I am for your son He who rides me will see the gods.' The cowherd was amazed that a spirit in disguise was visiting his home, but he asked no questions . Going inside , he soon returned with a steaming dish of his own precious food for the holy newcomer.
"The crooked old man-in-the-moon was angry. He had had a quarrel with the Father-of-Heaven over the rainfall and had been worsted. His crafty, fox mind was searching for a revenge that would not be too obvious. The black, beady eyes of the old man-inthe-moon darted from one treasure to another as he scanned his belongings. The god-of-the-sun was rapidly retreating behind the purple mountains when a sardonic smile crossed his leathery face . (The Father-of-Heaven should have remembered that he was dealing with fire when he quarreled with the old man-in-the-moon.)
"The bent, misshapen figure started. The golden moon was rising with increasing rapidity, thus hastening for him the time to depart on his duty of arranging marriages. This old man-in-the-moon went forth in the protecting darkness and tied the feet of little babies with his magical string. \i\Then these babies grew up into men and women they were forced by an invincible power to marry as the old man-inthe-moon wished. Now he looked intently out into space. His
glance rested on the lonely home of the cowherd. His thin lips twitched. Here was sufficient punishment.
"Leaving his home, he sped with the fleet, noiseless flight of the great sphinx-moth through the thick blanket of darkness to the home of the Father-of-Heaven. Like a glowing torch in the dark, shown the gaily lighted home. Carefully avoiding the celestial dragon who guarded the gods, he crept noiselessly over the white marble canal. Stealing up the many steps and slipping behind the red, lacquered pillars he entered his goal. He crept on cat-feet into the room of the sleeping girl-child. With eyes gleaming like those of a she-tiger, he searched the shadowy walls and found the bed. His wiry body was twisted like the shrubbery in the garden as he hovered over the baby. Rosy as the poppy in the fields she lay there, baby fists clenched and tiny legs apart. Yet as he gazed lustfully at her, she turned, murmured, and awoke. Her eyes, black as the sky before a storm, flew open. The big eyes filled with tears and the reel mouth puckered uncertainly.
" 'Little flower-of-heaven,' he crooned in the silky voice of deceit. 'Worry not your father who is taking his rest. Look at the beautiful string I have for you.' He held up the magic cord which shone through the darkness of the chamber as does a sun cloud on a clear day. The trusting girl-child gurgled in delight and reached for the proffered gift; but the sensitive ears of the revenger caught the soft pat of returning footsteps. When the nurse entered she saw the old Chinaman standing in servility in the farthest corner of the room.
" 'Your kind and most great of masters has sent me here to give his blessed one a gift-a magic word which will protect her,' he glibly explained. The mighty cobra was gently beguiling his prey.
" 'If it pleases you, I will retire.' The nurse, her senses numbed as if by opium, slowly left the room. The old man-in-the-moon chuckled as he returned to the bed. Pulling down the covering, he tied the chubby legs with his gift. The cord shimmered strangely for a few moments, then disappeared. Satisfied, he left, his feet making no noise on the marble floors.
"Now the old man-in-the-moon rushed to the earth. Going to the great plains, he soon arrived at the poor home of the poverty-stricken cowherd. While the father slept, he wrapped the cord carefully around the man -child's study limbs. The infant never moved, his long
lashes lay heavily on his soft skin, and his features were tense as he dreamed. * * * * * * *
"The god-of-the-sun had barely risen when the young princess ran out of her home. The tears of the willow tree lay fresh on the grass under her feet as she passed the silent lake . She was going to take her morning bath in the pool of precious yellow jade that her father had built for her. Through the stillness of the departing night stole the ,veird , heavenly strains of many lutes from the sky above. The imperial pigeons with tiny whistles fastened to them were flying in the early sweetness of dawn. The music was high and ethereal as the pigeons soared up, and it was deep and melodious as they swooped low. It was this melody which awoke the maiden every morning. Beautiful in her youth of seventeen years, she laughed with the joy of life. Her silken black hair fell about her golden, softly moulded shoulders as she bent clown and washed her face in the clear, blue waters of the pool. Small in stature, but superbly formed, she was the pride of the Father-of-Heaven, the most beautiful of his nine daughters. Taking off her small, velvet shoes, attractively embroidered with gold, she put one dainty foot in the cool water. With a merry laugh, she gave her silken bathing-robe to her maiden and leaped gaily into the waiting waters. Splashing about like a little child, her lithe form slipped in and out as she swam and dived again and again.
"The tall, slight bamboos behind the pool quivered. Unnoticed by the servant girl, a cow bearing a stalwart young man had crept up. The young fellow was gazing astonishedly at the exotic home of the Father-of-Heaven. The blue walls vied with the god-of-the-sun and the golden roofs gleamed. The lad's youthful face was tanned by the wind which had swept so relentlessly across the plains where he tended the cattle, and his strong hands were soiled with the toil of the night before. The cowherd's thoughtful eyes were dreaming of the young girl that the cow had promised him he would see. The mobile mouth was smiling as he rode along.
"The rustle of the bamboo trees annoyed the daughter of the Father-of-Heaven and the excited notes of the humming bird warned her. She looked up to see the blushing, averted face of the handsome cowherd. He had hastily turned away, but it was too late. He had seen. The furious girl screamed for her bath-robe and put it on hurriedly. Her small form was shaking with anger. With red mouth
quivering and black eyes flashing, she stepped up to the stranger. He stood there by his cow with bowed head and clenched fists, his eyes fixed on the ground. No mortal man could look on the daughter of a god. Stammering, he falteringly explained his position. Convinced somewhat by his confusion, and also by his appearance that he was speaking the truth, she kindly asked him to leave.
"That night, troubled by the accident of the morning, she crept out of the warmth into the chill of the dark. Above her the scintillating stars were glittering jewels against black velvet. The fireflies were darting madly from one spot to another, glowing embers in a depth of silence. Swaying slightly, her bejeweled feet wandered over the cold, hard marble bridge. Coming to the lake, her thoughts were interrupted by the insistent croaking of the ancient bullfrogs in the lake. Taking a silver whistle from about her neck, she blew one long, low note. Out of the vastness of nowhere came two boatmen. She commanded them to row her to the island of the temple. Getting into the boat , she wearily sank down among the soft, clinging cushions. The inky waters of the lake barely stirred as the long, slender , graceful boat cut through them. \tVith a slight crush of the boat against the banks of golden sand, the island was reached . Standing in front of the pagoda, the daughter of the Father-of-Heaven asked the boatmen to wait in the middle of the lake for her command.
"She waited until the boat disappeared in the lowering mists , then she walked over to the mighty weeping-willow. It looked so large and comforting to the worried, little maiden, still only a child. She put her arm around the strength-giving trunk of the willow.
"'O wise and worthy willow, tell me what I must do. This morning while I was taking my bath, a humble cowherd surprised me. He did not mean it, but he is a mortal. Shall I tell my father and let him decide, or shall I receive your decision?' Her voice was pleading and pitifully childish. The willow tree answered:
" 'It is Seveneve tonight. The cowherd woos the lady right.'
"The willow-tree had decreed. She arose and going to the water's edge , she blew her whistle, and bade the boatmen take her for a ride. Thus pillowed against her cushions under a canopy of black and silver, she fell asleep , silken lashes resting gently on flushed cheeks,
tender mouth smiling as she dreamed under the watchful care of the old man-in-the-moon.
"There was great excitement in the home of the cowherd. Everyone was bustling around, making ready for the coming wedding. The house was being covered with red paper and long strings of firecrackers were strung from one end to the other. The yard had been swept and the cattle freshly washed The azure sky was not marred by a single, feathery cloud, and the great god-of-the-sun sent his health-giving rays as a wedding present. There was no breeze to move the stationary bamboos. The silence was broken only by the rippling notes of a nightingale bubbling over with joy and song as he serenaded his mate, regardless of time or spot.
"The young lad was walking around in a glorious daze. He could hardy realize that he was going to marry the daughter of the Fatherof-Heaven. He restlessly sat down, then got up again as he impatiently awaited the coming of the scarlet, silk wedding chair which was bearing his youthful bride to him. His long wedding robes were of flaming red, satin , embroided with gold, silver, and colored silks. Ten of the death-dealing black-and-white snakes had been killed to make his shoes with their black stripes on a white background. The beautiful fan whose handle of jade he was fingering had caused the death of five gorgeous silver-and-gold pheasants. It was their brilliant tail feathers with their bright red and green spots that were so valuable. Fanning himself , he walked past the blackwood screen that kept the spirits out of the open door. Looking across the immense plain , he beheld his beloved approaching.
"With the roar and crackle of many exploding firecrackers preceding her, the bride came in her magnificent chair. With a flourish , the four carriers laid the chair down in front of the hou se. The cowherd's mother walked forward, lifted the purple curtain of the chair. With racing heart the bride stepped out. Her silken wedding robes were of scarlet and imperial yellow. A delicate red veil was over her face, hiding the finely moulded features from public view. The old mother of the cowherd led the almost weeping bride up the red carpet leading to the bridegroom. He gently raised the veil and looked on her quivering face for a moment. His clear-cut, sensitive mouth almost smiled, but custom would not permit. The father and
mother gave the young couple two wine glasses tied together with a red ribbon and fastened their hands together with a red string. * * * * * * *
"It was under a starless sky that the cowherd and the weaving lady stood together. Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears and the ruddy lips were not smiling at the loving husband. They had lived together for seven days of bliss since they had drunk their wine together on the wedding day. Drunk with happiness, the young husband had not noticed her sadness. A pensive sigh slipped out. He was all concern. She looked at him ·and her eyes filled with longing. With sinking heart she confessed. She must return to her father's home and weave the clouds. Since he was a mortal he could not go with her. With intense fervor, he declared nothing would separate them. The weaving lady sadly drew her finger across the sky and the milky way, that barrier of pearls against a white background, came between them.
"The Father-of - Heaven loved his little weaving lady and she persuaded him to let her meet her cowherd lover once a year. Then all the black crows of the world fly together and form a mighty bridge between the two lovers. The slightly falling, misty rain that falls on the Seveneve is their tears as they part."
The old man eye's faded as he finished his story. Gazing up into the sky at the lace interweaving of the clouds he saw the divine weaving lady spinning for her lover. The old man-in-the-moon visited many homes that night as Aquila and Vega, one on each side of the heavenly river, shimmered above. The soft enveloping rain, falling like snowflakes, refreshed the tired coolies.
DEATH IN AUTUMN
MARY CATHERINE WILLIAMSON
When you are gone and your body Will be lowered by warm hands In that cold, dark grave. When the dead leaves have made A brown quilt for your mounded bed, You will know that it is I Beside your earthy dwelling Speaking words of sorrowing love. When the dead leaves are rustled By the wind, That will be my breath.
TWO TRANSLATIONS FROM CATULLUS
By ROBERT QUICK
I.
"Vivamus, mea Leshia, atque amemus"
Let's live and love, my Lesbia; make light Of all the censure that old men recite . For suns may set and rise again each day, But when our own brief light has died away, We must sleep through an everlasting night.
Give me a thousand kisses; then outright A hundred more-and these are but a mite: Give me a myriad kisses when I say Let's live and love.
And when the numbers reach an untold height , We shall at last forget the total quite, That neither we nor any gossip may Such kissing to the jealous world betray . Our time is fleet , my Leshia ; for spite Let's live and love.
II.
"Quaeris, quot mihi f asiationes"
How many kisses are enough for me?
As many as the sands of Cyrene
That lie upon that fragrant Libyan shore Between the tomb of Battus and the door Of Ammon's temple; truly they may be As many as the stars that often see The loves of men when night comes furtively,These many, Lesbia, when you implore, "How many kisses?"
To kiss you thus is mad Catallus' plea . No gossiper shall count them nor shall he Bewitch us with his evil words. Ignore The number, Lesbia ; enough and more For me are these. We shall not say, shall we, "How many kisses?"
1928
A REVIEW OF ART AND LETTERS
••• BY.
BR U CE MORRISSETTE
LA WREN CE BLOOMBERG
H. G. KINCHELOE
DONALD PIERPONT
ELMER POTTER
ROBERT C. QUICK
BOOKS: 1928
The White Robe: James Branch Cabell. Robert M. McBride & Company, 1928.
This almost prohibitively priced edition of Bishop Odo's career, terrestial and sidereal, is dedicated to the late Frances Newman"inevitably-this story of dead lovers that were faithful"-and is illustrated-unfortunately-by someone named Robert E. Locher. The tome, with the hinted exception of the illustrations, is an excellent specimen of gala book-making . It is a shame you cannot get this story in a less expensive edition; but if you haven't ten dollars your knowledge of it must perforce be confined to the last two chapters , which were printed in the A 11ierican Mercury several years ago. It is a fine tale, in a consummated and heightened style, worth searching a long while to borrow, or even, if necessary, standing in the book-shop about three quarters of an hour to read.
Cabellian Harmonics: Warren A. McNeill. Random House, 1928.
A consensus of opinion about this book yields, with a disconcerting unanimity, the word "dull." Serious Cabellian students proffer the reason that they had noticed all these things before: and the plain
Cabell readers that all this simply does not interest them. Yet you conceivably can approve of this book: it is good that these things be set down-indeed, it is inevitable that they be set down some time: so why not, as the advertisement reads, now? There is little new here: you had noticed that this particular passage was really rhymed verse, and this composed in hexameters, and this one worked out of a little filler in the Reviewer of the old days, and so on. . . . The Symphonic Plan of the works seems a little far-fetched, especially in the light of Mr. Cabell's confessed dislike and almost scorn of music : the solution to the mirror and pigeons secret creaks slightly : and you find other things wrong. But academically it is possibly good. Indeed, in the dim future when spectacled Prof.- Dryasdust harranges the class on Mr. Cabell, it may be in use as a source book of contemporary opinion : but this is a rather horrible fate for a book. There is a short preface by Mr. Cabell.
Anna Livia Plurabelle: James Joyce. Random House, 1928. This slight book, each copy of which is signed by the author, will nearly fit into your vest pocket ... and costs exactly fifteen dollars. There is a preface-for which you are thankful-by Padraic Colum, who somewhat clarifies and renders understandable the Joyce work -which is, incidentally, only a portion of a large opus, "Work in Progress," now appearing in installments in transition, the quarterly published at Sylvia Beach's book-shop in Paris. Anna Livia Plurabelle is the story of a river, and if you approach it in the proper receptive attitude, is quite effective and sometimes very strangely beautiful.
Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony: Ezra Pound. Pascal Covici, 1928.
An entertaining and startingly inoccuous discussion of musical form and harmony, and of the as yet locally unheard music of M. George Antheil, who holds the record for the number of riots at his concerts. If the modernists in music require palliation to you, read it . Its salient fault is its extreme superficiality. But Ezra writes well.
Music: A Science and An Art: John Redfield. Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.
Here is the book we have needed for a long time: a technical handbook of music for the intelligent lay-reader. If you have always
wanted to know the how and why of music, but have found textbooks on harmony too laborious and an understanding thereof dependent on at least some pianist ability, here is your book. If you follow Redfield carefully, when you finish you will have a more thorough comprehension of the scales and their note-combinations, the timbre of instruments, rhythm, etc., than most advanced piano students. We have only one quarrel : the book should be Music: A Science and nothing more. For Redfield, even in the section entitled "Music: An Art," never leaves the scientific outlook, never stops talking science. There are not more than three paragraphs of esthetics in the whole book. Mr. Redfield's chief grudge is with keyboard instruments and the tempered scale, and his chief goal a return to the pure diatonic scale and social melody and harmony. The piano and the organ, he thinks, have corrupted music.
Modern French Painters: Maurice Raynal. Brentano's, 1928. This book contains critical discussions of fifty modern French painters, and about 100 plates. Unfortunately, the plates are not in color : possibly this accounts for the fact that only about ten of them appear to exhibit any real merit. . . The criticism, though replete with quite candid egotism, seems informative and fair. There is an excellent preliminary survey of the various modernist movements-a much better one, indeed, than the movements apparently warrant.
Old Pybus: Warwick Deeping. Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.
Another of the Deeping saccharine tales without so much of the tawdry sentimentality noticeable in a few of his others. Not as good as Sorrel and Son, but better than Doomsday and Kitty. After a few of these English novels, one wonders with what else, other than tea and tennis, the Englishman occupies himself. Descriptive passages extremely well done, but philosophy falls short of its mark, due to the constant pumping and waving of a didactic forefinger. Probably the most likeable feature is a quiet charm and tranquility which one enjoys as a change from the verile swift-moving American novel.
Deeping has sketched his characters leisurely and surely. He perhaps leaves with his readers well defined and colorful personages, typical of present-day England.
Harness: A. Hamilton Gibbs. Little, Brown & Co., 1928.
Gibbs, as we are constantly informed, knows through careful study the conditions prevalent in post-war England. One believed this when he read Labels , but even then he thought that the good major had better stick to the type of his first novel, Soundings, which is assuredly one of the best in a decade. But now this Harness will probably set the major back a few furlongs along the road to the goal that he set for himself in his first two books.
It is a story of ju st what the name implies, harness. How one can be tied down to this or that and so on . Gibbs seems to have lost those attributes even which made him at least a popular novelist.
The Gibbs' clan is prolifically turning out novels and novels and novels. Any other literary family which is seriously thinking of keeping up with the Gibbses will more than likely have a great deal of territory to cover.
Gmthe: Emil Ludwig. Little, Brown & Co., 1928.
The probable test of greatness in the future, provided, of course, that Herr Ludwig lives that long, will be to have one's life biographed by that good gentleman. It seems that he has delved into the existence , secret and otherwise, of everyone from the Nazarene to Bismarck who was of any importance at all. We read his Napoleon with much interest, but Gcethe is not nearly up to the good Herr's standard.
Ludwig surmises that not only has everyone heard of Gcethe, but that all are perfectly familiar with the greater majority of the bard's likes and dislikes and his eccentricities. For the layman to read Ludwig's ponderous volume of the life of Gcethe is almost unthinkable; and even if he does possess sufficient stamina, the final result would probably be a faint purple misconception of the great poet
Herr Ludwig is tireless in his researches and usually brings forth a number of enlightening incidents in the lives of his chosen great, but Gcethe is just another biography and not a particularly clear one at that.
By
Way of Art: Paul Rosenfeld. Coward-McCann, Inc., 1928.
Paul Rosenfeld seems to have filled, and very successfully, the place of the late James Huneker. He is probably a better critic than Huneker-at all events he is the better writer. He is pre-eminently
a modern; and this book, a succulently written survey of contemporary music, painting, sculpture, and literature , stands as the first actually notable collection of critical essays on purely modern subjects. Mr. Rosenfeld's inexplicable faculty for reproducing rhetorically the sense-effects of music and sculpture enables him to write on unfamiliar works without being abandoned by his readers. You may never have heard Honegger's Pacific 231, but when you have read Rosenfeld on it, you have framed a conception that tallies, experimentally, to a surpr isin g degree. It may be, too, that Mr. Rosenfeld will precipitate a stylistic change among the younger critics: it is not unthinkable that the prevalent journalistic Menckenese might profitably add an admixture of such freshly apt phrases as "Chopin's coolly aristocratic piano style," and "bellying molds of sombre marble, swollen volumes, proud progressions of lines and planes fill the hands with weight."
The Misbehaviorists: Harvey Wickham. The Dial Press, 1928. This man is the wittiest scoundrel who ever wrote on subjects psychological. His ludicrous attempts to get "Eliza to cross the ice behavioristically" is the funniest if perhaps not the most strictly logical attack on behaviorism ever written. His soko-analyses of Prof. Sigmund F. Himself, "essentially the literateur, the raconteur of spicy stories," are almost Riddellesque. Prodding here and there, at John Watson, Lewis Browne, Durant, Freud, etc., this fellow seeks to upset "the contemporary pseudo-science," to disperse determinism, at least in the Watsonian conception, and to elevate sanity and common-sense to the scientific throne. But his chief success has been that of being uproariously entertaining.
If some books are to be tasted, this is surely one. It is the ideal thing to pick up in a dull moment-you are rewarded for a chance opening by anything from some scrap of information concerning the strange amours of a medieval miner to a recipe for removing bloodstains, zodiacal as trologic al predictions, a ballade by Samuel Hoffenstein, or an article on jazz by Abe Niles. For each month there is a calendar annotated with Lunations, Facts, Advice, etc., a characterization of persons born under that zodiac sign, and many features.
There is a picture menagerie for the kiddies, a series of Perelmanlike woodcuts depicting an array of ludicrous subjects, and a quantity of contributions by first-rate authors. This, The M isbehaviorists , and Meaning No Offense if you like to laugh .
A Survey of Modernist Poetry: Laura Riding . Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1928.
Miss Riding here attempts palliation of our Steins, Cummingses , etc., with some, you must grant, success. She does actually point out sen se in their works-she does this by taking examples and explaining them. But in so doing she somewhat boomerangs herself by exposing her subjects to be at best the creations of a mediocre intellect . The emotions of Mr. E. E. Cummings, once you have deprived him of his typographical overcoat , are demonstrably puerile , banal, and girlishly sentimental. The modern poets tend steadily to confuse typography and use of the dictionary with literature. They remain children with vocabularies.
The Buck in the Snow: Edna St. Vincent Millay. Harper & Bros., 1928.
Miss Millay's last volume of verse is the weakest and slightest of her heretofore excellent work. She has undoubtedly one of the rarest lyric gifts of any living poet. Her work indeed has been likened to that of the immortal Sappho In fact , it ha s been said her verse is the rarest since the L esbian. Miss Millay is young . One of her finest poems, R enascence, was published before she was nineteen. While she has not been prolific , her work has been of the first order in technique, ly ric beauty, and philosophy. But now she writes The Buck in the Snow , which has but two mentionable poems and one of them is the title poem.
Even though this last volume of hers is not up to standard, it will nevertheless be of interest to those who like Miss Millay's work if only from the standpoint of watching and reading just what she is writing. The poetry as a whole in this collection is not especially good, but one will find some very fine individual lines.
John Brown's Body: Stephen Vincent Benet. Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1928.
Here is one of the most laudable pieces of work that we have had the pleasure of reading for a long time. The opinion of this
writer is that Benet has written the first real American epic. He has brought back the days of the Civil War in a style which is reminiscent of the old South itself. Every line breathes romanticism, heroism, courage, and chivalry. His portrait of Lee particularly is a fine work and upon it alone could rest the merit of his entire book
Meaning No Offense: John Riddell
(Corey Ford). John Day, 1928.
Mr. Riddell, or Trader Riddell, as he calls himself, has done an exceedingly clever piece of work in writing a volume of parodies on modern American prose and poetry. He has put the volume up in the form of Trader Horn and it consists of the record of conversations between old Trader Riddell and Mrs Ethel Reader, which, of course, is a parody on Mrs. Ethelreda Lewis. In apology to Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Drieser, Katharine Mayo, or whomever Riddell is burlesquing, he has the old Trader say, "Meaning no offense, Ma'am, meaning no offense."
The book will prove enjoyable for the most part to those who keep up with modern literature and are cognizant of the modern tendencies and eccentricities. It is just deucedly clever, and the illustrative caricatures by Covarrubias make it all the more enjoyable.
Art of the Night: George Jean Nathan. Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.
Monsieur Na than continues to lengthen his thumb, which is said to be quite elongated by this time from turning it down on so many customs, pieces of literature, dramatic outbursts, and pieces of art. George Jean in this book seems to have lost som·e of the old esprit which is assuredly the most outstanding characteristic of the good man. Nevertheless, we continue to read his books with much pleasure, due to the wealth of cultural morsels with which he fills his pages.
Mr. Nathan's opinions, while in some eyes unfair, appear generally to us to be perfectly rational and based on sound judgment and common sense which is more than can be said for the bunk which he decries.
Swan Song: John Galsworthy. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928.
With the publication in 1928 of Swan Song, John Galsworthy brought to a close the series of novels composing the Forsythe Saga, begun back in 1906 when The Man of Property appeared. The Saga
has been twenty -two years in its building, and we feel that in Galsworthy there has been a sadness, a reluctance to part with the family that he and the many thousands of his readers have come to know, to sympathize with, and to love in these years.
The fine irony that we have come to associate with Galsworthy in the earlier novels is present with scarcely any decrease in power in Swan Song. There is a larger presence of sentiment in Swan Song, more retrospect, and the characters are warmer. There persists, however, the old Galsworthy style of aloofness, with the never present Galsworthy and the ever present characters of the book. Swan Song is excellent reading in itself, but its value can be much more greatly appreciated if one has read some or all of the preceding "Forsythe" books.
PAINTING: 1928
Painting, an art which expresses life, is as broad as life itself. The prime factor in lifting the artist above the realm of mediocrity is his ability to express with boldness and surety the moving factor or spirit of the time in which he lives.
The history of painting is, therefore, a history of mankind. An exhibition of the best paintings of each age from da Vinci to Picasso would be a pictorial review of the history of civilization from that time to this.
Through the years from 1400, artists have been seeking new and better media of expression. After the functioning properties of color as opposed to line were discovered, the former methods were necessarily eliminated. The painting of posed subjects and recognizable objects was forced out and color dominated pictures.
To bring together pure composition and new methods has been a difficult feat, for we have so long been used to considering subject matter as a prime requisite of painting. It is a far cry indeed from portraits, landscapes and life studies to the cubism of Picasso.
"Cubism, which aims to make art more arbitrary in its selection of composional forms," and Synchromism, which aims to express, "by means of color, form which will be as complete and as simple as a Michelangelo drawing, and which will give subjectively the same emotion of form that the Renaissance masters gave objectively," are so new, so revolutionary to us in their character, brought up as we
are with the idea that the prime purpose of painting is to express life by painstaking representation on canvas of the things we see about us, that we cannot as yet tell what has been achieved.
It is not just that we should condemn modern painting, because through ignorance of its motives we fail to understand it and because it differs from the standards which convention has dictated as being correct. Whether we can lift our voices in ardent praise of the new forms of painting is an individual matter, but we should not fail to give credit to the modernists for having found new weapons with which future artists may achieve a high degree of perfection, for having broadened the fields of aesthetic endeavor, and for opening up ways which may lead ultimately to the placing of painting on an equal plane with music as a pure art.
The gradual change of painting from colored pictures to an abstract art dependent wholly upon its inherent element, color, was an inevitable progress. The evolution of music, its harmonic abstractions from the imitations of sounds in nature was a slow and tedious process. No one contends, however, that such compositions as, for instance, Evening Chimes and Pearly Dew Drops are aesthetically comparable to the Erioca Symphony or a Cesar Franck sonata. We still demand of painting, however, that its basic aim shall be to illustrate, to represent form. To the modernist, color is form.
Any painting moves us to emotional enjoyment only in so far as it is able to express things beyond our power to imitate. It is the strength of the representation and not the force of imitation that inspires aesthetic enjoyment in us.
The Ancients established composition as a requisite of painting; the Modernists have reduced form and color, two necessary elements in the painting of every age, to the same thing. It now remains only for artists to grasp these essential facts derived after years of research and to create. With the coming of synchromism painting has reached the stage where pure creation can be its only aim.
The modern tendency in painting must be taken into consideration. We cannot dismiss it as something worthless. Wright, in his Modern Paintimg, says: "For centuries painting has been reared on a false foundation, and the criteria of aesthetic appreciation have been iEelevant. Painting has been a bastard art-an agglomeration of literature, religion, photography, and decoration. The efforts of paint-
ers for the last century have been devoted to the elimination of all extraneous considerations, so making painting as pure an art as music." Ignorance of the art's fundamentals has been the cause of public condemnation. Public understanding and appreciation matters very little, however. "The painter's joy lies in the rapture of creation, in the knowledge that he is carrying forward the banner of a high ideal."
MUSIC: 1928
More properly, the title should be: Music-through 1928. For a survey of one year alone in modern music would yield only scattered examples of a variety of trends. As an instance, 1928 saw the composition of Resphigi's Toccata for Piano and Orchestra, as well as George Gershwin's An American in Paris and Ernest Bloch's symphony, America. Yet here you have three separate move ments in modern music-that is one trouble with the term "modern" : it can mean anything from jazz in the DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson type on up through George Geshwin's jazz, through Antheil, Cowell, Varese, Rudhyar, Ruggles, Bloch, Honegger, and Prokofieff to Strawinsky.
From 1922-1927 Edgar Varese and Carlos Salzedo, operating under the name The International Composers' Guild, exhibited to the world on Sunday nights at the Aeolin Hall specimens of the Modern Music in every phase of modernity. An excellent young critic, Mr. Paul Rosenfeld, included a review of these five years' productions in his latest book, By Way of Art. Briefly, the most important pieces offered were : Strawinsky's Renard and Les Noces, Hindemith's Das Marienleben and Concerto for Full Orchestra, Bloch's Concerto Grosso, Rudhyar's Zodiacal Birth, Ruggle's Men and Mountains and Portals, and Varese's Integrales, Octandre, and Arcanes. The last, it is true, was given not by the guild, but by Leopold Stokowsky and his Philadelphia Symphony; but the work is that of the most prominent Guild exponent.
Another important occurrence that has forwarded the new movements is the decision of American phonograph manufacturers to record outstanding pieces by modern composers. They have not
by any means as yet begun to record all the works that should be available; but until the past year or so it was utterly impossible to get Strawinsky, De Falla, Prokofieff, and Honegger without sending to Europe-and that at least is remedied. You can now hear Victor recordings of L'Oiseau de Feu, Fueurtanz, Love for Three Oranges, and Pacific 231. Debussy ' s L'Apres-Midi and Resphigi's Fountains of Rome, as well as Strawinsky's earlier Petruska have been available for some while. Even several selections from Tyl Ulenspiegel have been recorded. But you still have to send to Europe for Arnold Bax, Malipiero , Krenek, Satie, Poulenc, Milhaud, and most of Cesar Franck. Slowly, however, as the sales of these records indicate the popular interest, we shall probably have more and more access to all the moderns, even here in Richmond. They were dubious about recording the Rhapsody in Blue, and its sales are in the hundred thousands. So they were prompt enough about Grofe's Metropolis. Since the Columbia trade seems to have been -inexplicably ousted in Richmond by the Victor Company-there is only about one store left which deals in Columbia records-we miss hearing quite a number of excellent things. Gershwin's best work so far, the Piano Concerto in F, has recently been recorded by them.
Abe Niles, in his Bookman column, "Ballads, Songs, and Snatches" for January , 1929, surveyed the past year in regards to straight jazz. Those interested will find there an excellent list of the best jazz records made during 1928. From personal observation, possibly the finest single piece of real jazz was the Victor record "Sluefoot."
In Richmond, 1928 saw a fair musical season. To be sure, everything presented was almost monotonously orthodox, but by the time this is published the Boston Symphony will at least have introduced us to Arthur Honegger. First of all, there was the San Carlo Company, which, again, will have appeared once more when this is printed, in nine operas. There was Sigrid Onegin, Kochanski, Ponselle, Szgeti, Tibbet, Kreisler, and John Powell. At the Mosque, The Mikado, The Pirate of Penzance, and Iolanthe were splendidly produced ; and The American Opera Company in Carmen, La N ozzi di Figaro, and Faust was very fine. Richmond, at all events, moves on ....
BROADWAY: SUMMER 1928
A Short Review of Outstanding Dramatic Productions
STRANGE INTERLUDE: Eugene O'Neill A Theatre Guild Production
JOHN GOLDEN THEATRE
CAST
Charles Marsden _ Tom Powers
Professor Leeds _Philip Leigh
Nina Leeds ___________ Judith Anderson
Sam Evans _ Richard Barbee
Edmund Darrell ____________________ Warburton Gamble
Mrs. Amos Evans _____Helen Westley
Gordon Evans, as a boy __ Charles Walters
Madeline Arnold __________________ Ethel Westley
Gordon Evans, as a man ____________________________
John J Burns
So much has been written and said by capable critics of this nineact, five-hour play, that we modestly refrain from comment upon Mr. O ' Neill's work itself, and confine our remarks to the production as staged by The Theatre Guild . Technically, the staging was well nigh perfect. The settings-six of them-were quite simple and so well suited to the action that in watching the play one quite forgot them-and that is high praise indeed. The lighting varied in sympathy with the moods of the play, and one noted the extraordinary effect of the slowly dimming lights in the "my three men" speech at the end of Act 6. With the acting, however, we must find fault. It was quite good of its kind and almost any member of the cast might have graced one of our modern "realistic" plays, but O'Neill, even when he is most realistic, possesses a note of fantasy, and it is precisely that note that the Theatre Guild production failed to touch . And that is to be expected of actors trained in the "fool-proof" dramas of today. Judith Anderson as the neurotic Nina was quite sufficiently neurotic. She can be almost appalling in her portrayal of the uglier emotions. In Act 3, when she is told she must kill her baby to save it from a life of idiocy, she falls upon her hands and knees on the floor and gives vent to a series of harrowing cries, and all this is so well done that it seems perfectly natural. Thus far she is excellent, but in the portrayal of the higher emotions-in the speaking of O'Neill's finest speeches such as the mother's hymn to her unborn child-in these she fails lamentably. Of the entire cast, only Tom
Powers, as Marsden, seems to realize that there is in Strange Interlude something more than surface realism, and it is Tom Powers' acting one remembers longest. It will be long indeed before we shall forget the picture he made in the ninth act as an old man standing at the garden gate holding a bouquet of withering roses while watching a pair of youngsters making love.
VOLPONE: Stefan Zweig
(Based on the Comedy by Ben Jonson)
A Theatre Gu i ld Production
GUILD THEATRE
PRINCIPALS OF CAST
Mosca (The Gadfly) ............................
Volpone (The Fox)
Vol tore (The Vulture)
Douglass Montgomery
Claude Rains
Leigh Corvino (The Crow)
Corbaccio (The Raven)
Ernest Cossart
Travers Canina (The Bitch) ................____ Rqth Chorpening Colomba (The Dove)
Connard Leone (The Lion)
Judge
Alan Joslyn
Morris Carnovsky Servants, Musicians, Singers, Soldiers, Court Attendants, Etc.
This rollicking farce of animals in the shape of men was staged with the Theatre Guild's usual care and good taste. It moved rapidly and with almost machine-like precision through three of the liveliest acts we have ever been privileged to witness. Like most of Ben Jonson's comedies, Volpone has no star-or rather it has several stars; it is difficult, therefore, to select any particular actor for commendation unless it be Douglass Montgomery, who, with a minimum of make-up to aid him, produced a maximum of effect-most especially in his handling of subtleties and double-entendres-a matter of voice and facial expression. Philip Leigh ( who dies in Strange Interlude every clay at 6 P. M. which gives him time to race around to the Guild Theatre and draw a second salary as Corvino in Volpone) gives a remarkable portrayal of a vulture-like mediaeval lawyer. One can scarcely imagine a more nearly perfect representation of a vulture than that of Mr. Leigh as he makes his first entrance, hopping on a black crutch, his little bald head glistening above his beak, his capes fluttering like great wings-he meanwhile uttering odd birdlike noises. A pleasant but quite forgetable evening.
PORGY: Dorothy and DuBoise Heyward
A Th eatre Guild Product i on REPUBLIC THEATRE
PRINCIPALS OF CAST
Porgy, a crippled beggar __ Frank Wilson
Crown , a stevedore
Crown's Bess ·---·
Sporting Life
Jake
LilY---····································-··
Alan Archdale
ack Carter
Evelyn Ellis
·Percy Verwayne
Hill
Paul
Erskine Sanford
Those who doubt that the great art of the modern theatre , in these days of "actor-proof " plays and "type " actors , is the art of the director should see Porgy. From the moment the curtain rises on a summer evening in Catfish Row , an atmosphere is established which remains unbroken throughout the rather long play. This, as every one knows, is a drama of negro life in the South, and to those of us who are reared in the South comes strongly what John Rankin Towse calls "the emotion of recognition. " The wake scene over the dead body of Serena's murdered husband ends with one of the most thrilling climaxes we have ever seen. This is purely a matter of directorship. The lamp on the mantle flickers out, leaving only the light beside the body which casts grotesque shadows upon the walls . Crown's Bess starts a wild negro spiritual in which the rest 30m. The wailing of the negroes becomes louder and more weird until, at the height thereof, all rise and, lifting their hands upward, cast giantesque and terrifying shadows into the gloom behind them. The only quite noticeable defect in the direction-or perhaps it was the fault of the actor-was the miserable attempt of the character, Alan Archdale, a Southern gentleman, to approximate a Southern dialect-at least I suppose that is what he was trying to do, though it might have been throat trouble.
The acting in general was rather better than usual, chiefly, we think, due to the fact that nine-tenths of the cast was composed of negroes.
Trash. Mae West knows no more about writing plays than she does about acting or the standards of common decency. Her acting consists of a rolling walk somewhat reminiscent of a sailor on shore leave , a curling lip, and a slow drawling voice which is supposed to be very enticing. Her most successful character is that of a prostitute. Her play-writing consists of a series of approaches to the line of censorship. The audience is held through the first two acts wondering if that buxom wench , Diamond Lil, will finally succeed in seducing the nice Salvation Army officer. By the beginning of the third act, however , the audience's interest has changed to a languid admiration of the will power of Salvation Army officers in general and a consideration of the possibility of quietly making one's escape via the nearest exit. It is here that a genius (not Mae West) arises and inserts bodily into the play one of the most amusing and interesting vaudeville stunts we have ever beheld. The scene represents the the back room of Jordan's Sal oon in Chatham Square thirty years ago. Into this setting, the aforementi oned genius ha s in serted a representation of an old -fa shioned barroom night with slumming parties, singing waiters, sailors who g et into fight s, and other thing s, so me of which are best not mentioned here. It is in this scene that Diamond Lil sings a pasteurized version of Frankie and J olinny.
There is an end to the play in which the nice Salvation Army officer turns out to be an eagle-eyed sleuth or something like that, but nobody pays much attention after the barroom scene.
THE ROYAL FAMILY: Geo. S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber
A Jed Harris Production
SELWYN THEATRE
PRINCIPALS OF CAST
Herbert Dean --------------------·-·----··-------------- Orlando Daly
Kitty Dean _____________________________ Marjorie Wood
Gwen ______________________ Molly Johnson
Perry Stewart ___________________________ Roger Pryor
Oscar Wolfe _______________________________ J efferson DeAngelis
Julia Cavendish ____________________________________ Ann Andrews
Anthony Cavendish ___________ Otto Kruger
Gilbert Marshal_ _________ _ ____ Joseph King
We cannot help feeling , like Alexander Woollcott, that this was
one of the happiest evenings we ever spent in the theatre. The play, a parody on the home life of stage favorites, was packed, in the words of Robert Littell, "with all the glamor, false or real, that the stage has for those who aren't on it; all the purple tantrums, and lovable hysteria, and sudden decisions, and spasms of temperament, and mad caprice and pound foolishness, and gorgeous egoism, and boxes of roses, and late breakfasts, and near scandals, and passionate tradition, and unshakable stage patriotism which makes leading men and leading ladies what we like to think they are." The production had, in fact, scarcely a weak spot in it, though to be sure some of the lesser characters were quite overshadowed by the masterly portrayal by the English actress, Haidee Wright, of the role of Fanny Cavendish. This Fanny Cavendish was, you know, an actress of the old school, tenacious of traditions, and not a little bewildered by some of the ideas of the more youthful Cavendishes who, following the new school of acting , were accustomed to long runs and knew little or nothing of "the road" to which Fanny Cavendish had been accustomed in her earlier clays. The most thrilling moment of the play was to us the climax to the old actress' reply to a scoffer at the fascination of the stage. "What do you know?" she asks, and proceeds minutely and with wonderful vividness to describe an evening of her own in the theatre. One sees her arrive at the theatre. One hears the call boy announcing, "Half-hour, Miss Cavendish! Fifteen minutes, Miss Cavendish!" One sees her take her place at her entrance to await her cue. Then, at a stirring climax, the old woman, having wrought herself into a high pitch of excitement, faints dead away.
To tell the truth, we spent the evening grinning like an idiot with sheer delight. Even the death scene of Fanny Cavendish, so apropos was it and so like a graceful exit, failed to dampen our skipping sp1nts. We cannot believe that the Barrymores, as reputed, made objections to this play . If the Cavenclishes are indeed a parody on the Barrymores, then these Barrymores have our tenderest sentiments. But, evident as the parody seems at first thought, we are not so sure of it, nor was Miss Wright whom we afterwards had the felicity to meet and engage in a delightful conversation, for to tell the truth Haiclee Wright and Fanny Cavendish turned out to be one and the same person.
THE SILENT HOUSE:
John G. Brandon and Geo. Pickett
A Lee Shubert Production SHUBERT THEATRE CAST
Benson ····---------····
Ho-Fang
Mateo
T'Mala
Philip Barty
George Winsford
Dr. Chan-Fu
H 'W ang
Jacob Herrington
Charles McNaughton
Harold De Becker
James MacDona Id
Keenan
Gerald Oliver Smith
Mehan
Lang
B ry an Lycan
Arthur Bowyer
Senor Leon Peroda _______ ~uis Alberini
We visited this show as a result of a visit to Joe Leblang's Cut Rate Ticket Agency one night when we had nothing else to do. The title of the play, you note , is in plain English; we were very much surprised therefore on taking our seat some two minutes after the curtain had risen to note that the actors were all speaking in a strange tongue. We understand not a word. Towards the end of the first act, an elderly lady leaned over toward us. "Young man," she said, "can you tell me in what language the actors are speaking?" "I am sorry," we replied , "I cannot, madam, though I think I caught a few words of Yiddish." To make a long story short, we discovered along about the middle of the second act that what the actors were speaking was English after all-of a sort. And this misunderstanding was not a result of any unfamiliarity with the New York dialect. We had, at this time, spent some two months in that delectable town and had grown so expert as to distinguish immediately a citizen of Great N eek from a citizen of "the Bronix" or a denizen of "t'oityt'oid street" by dialect alone. The Shubert Theatre simply housed the mushiest enunciation in town!
The play itself was not so bad if you like the sort of mellerdrammer that deals with sliding panels, mysterious documents, dead uncles, shots in the dark, Chinamen, and fake telegrams. And the acting of Herald De Becker as a domesticated Chink was really quite good, comparatively speaking.
ELMER GANTRY: Patrick Kearney
(Based on the Novel by Sinclair Lewis) A Wm. A Brady Production PLAYHOUSE THEATRE
CAST OF PRINCIPALS
Elmer Gantry ----------~dward Pawley Deacon Bains_____________ Ernest Pollock
Lulu Bains ________
Gwendolyn Hathaway
Cecil Aylston _Eustace Wyatt
Sharon Falconer ___Adele Klaer
Frank Shallard __Robert Harrigan
Floyd N aylor _ Tom Fadden
T. J. Riggs ___ Lumsden Hare
An uncommonly sorry dramatization of Sinclair Lewis' wellknown opus, but with Edward Pawley's excellent acting and the originality of the tabernacle scene in the second act rather entertaining, nevertheless. The utter obviousness and cheapness of Mr. Kearney's dramatization is sufficiently indicated by an example from the first act. Elmer Gantry sits at an organ in the deacon's best parlor gaily singing Frankie and Johnny when enter Deacon Bains him self, whereupon one suddenly perceives that what the Rev. Gantry is singing is really Nearer , My God, to Thee.
Even Mr. Pawley's skillful acting was insufficient to overcome his handicap in appearance, for a bare five feet eight is scarcely the stature expected of the burley Gantry.
In the second act, which starts outside on 48th Street, the entire theatr(' is con v erted into a tabernacle. Hymns are sung; collection is taken in loud-jingling tin pans; Sharon Falconer exhorts to repentence, promising salvation; converts-among them, Elmer Gantry -rush up upon the stage and kneel in prayer; and a great deal goes · on that in former days would have been called blasphemy. But the ne plus ultra of the Brady performance is the fire scene when Sharon's Atlantic City Tabernacle burns. The program considerately warns patrons that this fire is produced without the use of combustible materials of any kind-all of which any one who has seen the "fire" must regard as the epitome of useless information. The holocaust begins with a stifled explosion, whereupon electric fans begin to blow yards of red chiffon up through trap doors, and a number of perfectly healthy supernumeraries come rushing upon the stage where, overcome by some sudden and unprecedented ailment , they fall to the floor and roll about most ludicrously.
An amusing comedy.
THE LADDER: J. Frank Davis
Financed by Edgar B. Davis
CORT THEATRE
CAST OF PRINCIPALS
Roger Crane __ Raymond Jarno
Margaret Newell .............. ............................Carroll McComas
Letizia ·---
Dr. Johnson
Betty Lane
Guiseppe Uato .
William Matteson ..................
Maria Ascarra
Julius McVicker
Wall
J. McNamara
..Ross Alexander
This is the play upon which its producer, the banker, Edgar B. Davis, expended $10,000 a week for some three years-representing a total loss of nearly $2,000,000 It has played to full houses when tickets were given away free , as in the summer of 1928, and it has played to audiences of six when regular Broadway prices were charged. It has been called "the biggest flop in history"-all of which strikes us as a bit odd for several reasons. In the first place, the actors are reasonably capable. Edward McNamara in particular as the Italian painters' model does as good a character hit as you will be likely to see in a dozen seasons. The theatre is good and wellsituated, the play is tastefully staged , and of all purely legitimate productions on Broadway , The Ladd er alone boasts an entr'acte orchestra. And the play itself is not bad . We have sat through much worse and counted it an evening well spent. The dialogue has been revised and revamped by the best play doctors on Broadway; it is infinitely better written than Diamond Lil , for instance, but it simply does not "click. " It is boring. A little of Mae \ i\Test's box-office sense might have helped Mr. Davis, for Miss West, whenever she felt her play beginning to lag, inserted a seduction scene to titillate the libidos of her audience. Mr. Davis, however, showed no such poor taste, and so his play became "the greatest flop in history." Why is The Ladd er boring? Largely, I think because the author has forgotten that movement is the prime essential of drama. His play talks too much and doesn't move enough.
COQUETTE: George Abbott and Ann Preston Bridgers
A Jed Harris Production
Norma Besant _ Helen Hayes
Jimmie Besan~ -
Lawler , Jr .
Dr. Besant _ __ Charles Waldron
Stanley Wentworth .... ......................___ G, Albert Smith
Betty Lee Reynolds -··
Mr Wentworth
Julia - -
Michael Jeffrey··
Merckel
Frederick Burton
Abbie Mitchell
Bryant Sells
Joe Reynolds __Gaylord Pendleton
Ethel Thompkins Phyllis Tyler
Ed Forsythe Frank Dae
We visited this play on August 18 last , which , in New York at least, was the hottest day of the summer. On that same Saturday we had attended a motion picture , Th e Patrfot, which had just opened at the Rialto Theatre and Ziegfeld's Thr ee Musk eteers which had been running for some months . In addition to these di sadvantages on our part, that very day had seen the star, Helen Hayes , become Mrs. Charles McArthur. A nd when you consider that we came away very warm but thoroughly satisfied and delighted you must concede that there was something in Coqu ette very worth while . That something was Miss Hayes herself who is as fine an actress as we expect t o see for a good many seasons There are very few actresses indeed who could have played that difficult first act without becoming "cute" or "kitteni sh" ; Miss Hayes became neither; she played with such perfect naturalne s s and simplicity that we were ready to agree with the old gentleman sitting behind us who muttered, "Isn't she sweet?" But it was in the tragic last act that she showed her real power. No tragic gestures. No hysteria. No Judith Anderson cries. Merely a slight huskiness of voice and a deadly pallor. And then as she sat talking quietly to her brother, firmly resolved to kill herself to save the honor of her family , her face seemed to become greyer and greyer. There was a world of suppressed emotion in her voice when she tried to say good-bye to her stern old father. "Can't we talk together once more like we used to, Dad?" When, at last, she glided wraithlike out of the room, she seemed already dead -the ghost of the little coquette we had met in the first act. The distant sound of the pistol shot as she ended her life seemed perfectly natural, for we had already seen, before our eyes, the spirit of little Norma Besant leave her body .
All this sounds, we realize, quite melodramatic and not a little sentimental, but under the spell of Miss Hayes' acting-even on the eighteenth of August-one forgets the crudities o( the play and watches with intense interest. At least, we did .
We should commend Jed Harris for his faithful portrayal of Southern life. He secured authentic Southern dialect by the simple process of selecting Southern people to play his chief characters. In Coquette, for the first time on any stage, we heard our old Confederate "Suh" pronounced correctly.
SHORT PLAYS AT THE PALACE THEATRE
I.
THE OPEN DOOR: Sutro
Eva Le Gallienne and Donald Cameron
Eva Le Gallienne, founder and director of the Civic Repertory Theatre, deserves all the praise that has been showered upon her for her initiative and courage in founding a theatre to present good plays at moderate prices. She shows intelligence in every motion both on and off the stage. Her personality is pleasing. She is a fairly capable actress , but it is as an actress that she has, unfortunately, been vastly overrated, chiefly by Miss Le Gallienne herself. She is addicted to flowing garments, Sarah Bernhardt gestures, and Ethel Barrymore mannerismsnone of which suit her style of acting nor her physical equipment , for, whereas she is very pretty at times, when she flings her arms about too much, one notices that she has big limbs-much too big to be dainty ; and when she attempts the Barrymore contralto, one notices how thin and insufficient is her voice. Her acting seems a little too calculated and mechanical to inspire a great deal of emotion.
II.
ROMEO AND JULIET-Balcony Scene
Eva Le G.allienne and Donald Cameron
This was very poorly staged, and Donald Cameron is much too stocky to make an acceptable Romeo. Eva, herself, flung big hands over the edge of the balcony to her fat Romeo. In so doing, she revealed double-jointed elbows. Rather terrible.
III.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Louis Soloman
Starring Helen Menken, of Capti<ve fame, supported by John Gallaudet
In this brief fifteen minute play, Helen Menken wrought her audience to such a pitch of emotion as we have rarely seen in a theatre. The effect was such that, when the curtain fell, it took the audience nearly half a minute to recover sufficiently to burst into a storm of applause. She played the part of a little Harlem girl (not all natives of Harlem are negroes in case you didn't
know.) She spoke the Harlem dialect with skill and authority. We find that we have forgotten almost completely how she looked or how she achieved her remarkable effects. We remember only a red head and a voice of anguish that cried its despair in the smashing climax of Louis Soloman's short play .
This revival does not, as you perceive from the above, properly belong to a resume of a Broadway season, yet we felt that a few remarks on this young man, Glenn Hunter, who is styled on his playbills as "America's Foremost Juvenile Actor," might not be amiss. Three or perhaps four of the revival cast appeared in the original New York production. The others were capable stock actors, so I think we can say that the Baltimore production at least approximated the New York play.
In Baltimore, Kathryn Givney completely overshadowed the rest of the cast in point of skill and emotional fervor. With a full rich voice, she gave a memorable portrayal of Laura Simmons, the pedagogue's wife. But it is Glenn Hunter himself that we wish to discuss, so we must pass on from this admirable actress. To _ begin with, Mr. Hunter's appearance is greatly in his favor. He looks much younger on the stage than on the street (yes, we have seen him in the street, wearing a red, green, and yellow sport sweater and followed by at least five pedigreed dogs) or in the motion pictures . No juvenile could look more childishly innocent than Glenn Hunter can when he has the softening effect of amber footlights to aid him. The women in the audience, stirred with maternal instinct, take him into their hearts. And the men as well are attracted by his frank, honest
countenance. Mr. Hunter's chief skill lies in pantomime. With the greatest delight we watched him portraying an embarrassed young prep-school student at tea. He did not clown the scene in the least, but when the hostess came to take his plate, you noticed what a mess he had made with his cake trying to eat it without dropping crumbs . Of his voice, however, Mr. Hunter has not yet secured complete mastery. Van Druten's play consists largely of fairly short , simple sentences. This places Hunter at his worse in point of intonation and cadence. He almost invariably begins his sentences at a fairly low pitch. His speech then rapidly rises in pitch and increases in speed until a little past the middle of the sentence where it begins to descend in pitch until at the end of the sentence it is quite low. This produces a continuous rise and fall which is pleasant at first, but which, as may be expected, soon becomes decidedly monotonous. Still, we suppose that in this day of prose dramas a few defects in voice may be forgiven , especially in one of such varied capabilities and of such an engaging personality as Glenn Hunter .
CROCHETING: 1928
And what can be said of the ancient and distinguished, though minor art of crochet-work in the year 1928? This form of psychic expression, possessed of the noblest classic tradition, has for several decades been quite decidedly on the wane, and the past year has witnessed, we regret to say , its lamentable downfall. The last page in its long and interesting .history is now practically written, and like the corresponding page in the story of Rome, it tells a sad tale of corruption and decay.
Back in the sturdy old primitive days when Eve improved each shining hour by spanning while Adam was delving around and about, the art of crocheting was born. Though she had but a thorn for a crochet-hook and vegetable fibers for thread, the genius of Eve evolved the chainstitch and thus gave the art a firm groundwork. Her creations were essentially the outcome of her practical age : strong wrist-straps for Adam's assortment of clubs, and borders to bind the edges of fig leaves. Some have
criticized her work on the grounds of its crudeness, but modern judgment admits its strength, simplicity, and suitability to the purpose for which it was created.
It seemed that the art was doomed to die at the outset, for after the serpent had beguiled Eve and God had cast her out ( the beginning of the conflict between Art and Morals), women were too busy cooking meals and multiplying the human race to occupy themselves with art. It was not until the days of Penelope that the art was again brought to the attention of men. This was the Golden Age of crocheting. In the long years when Ulysses, having joined the navy, was seeing the world, Penelope took the simple chain-stitch of Eve and developed it to such an extent that her classic masterpieces have never been equalled. For years she studied and experimented, gradually acquiring a masterly technique. The result of all her labors in the service of art was the Grecian yoke for nighties, which was so much admired by Ulysses and her suitors. We have but one example of this preserved for us to the present day; namely, the yoke worn by the Venus de Milo. Unfortunately, the affair slipped down somewhat, and due to the fact that the poor lady has no arms, this one example is irretrievably lost in the folds of drapery about Venus' waist. The form, however, was definitely established by Penelope, and has come down to us through the work of her disciples.
Crocheting, following the Penelope-tradition, flourished until the time of the Industrial Revolution. With the advent of the steam engine and machine-made nighties, the art was forced to take a back seat. Only the wealthy could afford hand-made yokes, and novelty became the fashion. Crocheters greatly elaborated and refined their technique until the art was lost in its own tangled meshes. The yoke-motif was expanded and amplified to such an extent that, just prior to the last war, whole nighties and even pajamas were being crocheted.
Once indeed, in the work of the French artist, Mlle. Toulouse, there was a flash of inspiration lighting up for a moment the fading sky of a decadent art. This bold and ingenious woman cast tradition to the winds, finding her motif in the fish-nets of Iceland. In her earlier works the new idea was used quite effectively, and its exponent was surrounded by an adoring pub-
lie. The execution of these beautifully simple designs was no great technical difficulty; it consisted in dropping all the stitches in the nightie except every tenth one, which was looped around every other tenth one in an ordinary slip-knot, so that the finished garment could be easily adjusted to fit various sizes and contours. But the success of the modern mode spelled its ruin. Mlle. Toulouse spent so much time answering the letters sent to her by budding young crocheters, that she neglected to pick up the tenth stitch, upon which her art was founded. Even a war-time public could not brook such slipshod workmanship, and this promising artist's work in the robe de nuit fell into disfavor. Imagine Milady's embarrassment clad in such a costume.
Since the nightie, along with Mlle. Toulouse , has become passee, present-day crocheters have been forced to confine themselves to frilly edgings for Milady's bloomers or filigree work for Milady's Dr. Dentons. The art has become a craft , subordinate to the textile industry, throttled by the Great God Machine. The glorious days of Penelope have passed into oblivion, and crocheting is on its last legs. We can hope for no renaissance until a new civilization rears its lovely head upon the debris of New York and Chicago. The most notable achievement during the past year has to do with the new Dr. Dentons for women, equipped with zippers that are fastened at the top, or neck, with padlocks by Yale. The leading crocheters of America have been making neat little pink cases to cover the somewhat unaesthetic padlock. A sad commentary upon modern crochet-work and an even sadder upon our topheavy society!
ELMER POITER
THE MESSENGER
RICHMOND COLLEGE
J. HARRIS WELSH -
H. G. KINCHELOE
LAWRENCE BLOOMBERG
BRUCE MoRRISSEITE -
CARROLL T. TAYLOR
LLOYD CASTER -
Assistant
WESTHAMPTON COLLEGE
CATHERINE BRANCH
NATALIE EVANS
MARGARET LOWE
Editor-in-Chief
Business Manager
Assistant Editor
Assistant Editor
Assistant Editor
Business Manager
Staff Artist
Editor- in-Chief
Business Manager
Assistant Editor
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EDITORIAL
A NEW WAY TO SOLVE AN OLD PROBLEM
THE MESSENGERwas established as a purely literary magazine , and , as such, has been dedicated to and dependent upon the opuses of campus writers. Naturally , therefore , whenever there chanced to be a scarcity of writers or when such writers as there were became lazy, that bugabear of all MESSENGEReditors arose , "dearth of material. " This lack of material had been the subject of so many editorial complaints that, when Le slie Jones took over the editor ship of the magazine in April, 1925, he declared in his opening editorial that the old phrase , "dearth of material ," should never again be heard from the staff then in office, threatening, furthermore , that if actually a lack of material should arise , the editor would fill the magazine with his own writings. Now all editors are not so prolific as Mr. Jones, and whereas Mr. Jones was able faithfully to keep his promise , subsequent editors have done much sweating over this matter of filling blank pages. The present staff has already had recourse to
such space fillers as "Maria Muggs" and "Archibald Butts," both fairly prolific and highly accommodating writers.
With the appearance of the February issue, however, a new system is inaugurated. This system is exemplified by the special feature, 1928, a Review of Art and Letters, which fills a good many pages of the current issue. In the future, at least while this staff is in office, whenever there is insufficient material of a literary nature to fill THE MESSENGER,some such special feature will appear, and if said feature happens not to accord with the criterion of those who still cherish this magazine as a representative of local belles lettres, that is the business of such local literati as will not write.
