THE THEATRE
The bibliography of this subject is extensive, but in the main unilluminating. It consists chiefly in a magnanimous waving aside of what is, and an optimistic dream of what is to be. Into this category fall most, if not all, of the many volumes written by the college professors and such of their students as have, upon graduation, carried with them into the world the college-professor manner of looking at things. Nevertheless, Professor William Lyon Phelps’ “The Twentieth Century Theatre,” for all its deviations from fact, and Professor Thomas H. Dickinson’s “The Case of American Drama,” may be looked into by the more curious. Mr. Arthur Ruhl’s “Second Nights,” with its penetrating humour, contains several excellent pictures of certain phases of the native theatre. Section IV of Mr. Walter Prichard Eaton’s “Plays and Players,” Mr. George Bronson-Howard’s searching series of papers entitled, “What’s Wrong with the Theatre,” and perhaps even Mr. George Jean Nathan’s “The Popular Theatre,” “The Theatre, The Drama, The Girls,” “Comedians All,” and “Mr. George Jean Nathan Presents” may throw some light upon the subject. Miss Akins’ “Papa” and all of Mr. O’Neill’s plays are available in book form. The bulk of inferior native dramaturgy is similarly available to the curious-minded: there are hundreds of these lowly specimens on view in the nearest book store.
G. J. N.