There is small doubt that the fifth act offered the greatest difficulties to be overcome, because here the poet is face to face with the essentially epic nature of his subject matter and was certainly put to it to overcome this handicap. This is the state of affairs: The enraged chieftain is prevented by his implacable wife from yielding. The allies do all in their power to obtain peace. If Old Norse conceptions are adhered to there is a deadlock. Now, nothing prevents the epic art of the saga from telling, at this juncture, that forth stepped Bishop Botolf and with threat of excommunication brought about a satisfactory conclusion. It is different in the drama. In it the intervention of the bishop as deus ex machina is a quasi-external element, because not sufficiently motivated in the preceding development. It remains an incident.
For all that the title is justifiable. Conceding that this sudden 'good' ending looks like a concession and certainly is a constructive weakness, yet in the inwardness of the subject it is excellently motivated by the typically mediæval attitude of Kolbein to salvation and the Church as its sole bestower. Notwithstanding the ambiguity of its victory, the Crozier has won. Another power than the moribund gods and the overstrained Teutonic conceptions of morality—the Law of the Sword—has conquered, even if by the help of conceptions almost as crude. And this well indicates the normal course of Christianity, which has at all times made its way more by weight of power and influence than by conviction and conversion.
Finally a word on the subject of the drama. Our readers are beginning to become so accustomed to the spiced dishes of Continental Problem drama,—reaction against which has set in there long ago,—that fears may well be entertained that the rude simple fare of the Historic Drama will be rejected with scorn. This would indeed be regrettable, as tending to show that we are still far from a sober catholicity of taste, and still in the leading-strings of the Old World, not yet having obtained that independence and maturity of judgment which consists in being wise enough to gather nourishment suitable to one's needs from whatever be offered to us, even it be not labeled with the ism of the hour.
THE NEW DRAMA
"The play's the thing"
THE PLAYFARER
BY HOMER H. HOWARD
THE BIJOU
As early as eighteen thirty-five a theater known as the Lion existed where the Bijou now is. It was maintained under various names until taken possession of by B.F. Keith. Later he decided to make a motion picture place of this theater, and in February, 1908, it was opened for that purpose. Soon a new policy was adopted and Mrs. Josephine Clement was appointed manager of the Bijou Theater, with instructions to develop an entertainment of a different type from the usual motion picture program.
Mr. Keith did this not only from a desire to preserve the old theater, but to see if the public would not support a higher-class cheap show. His confidence in the sanity of the taste of the public has been fully justified by the results of the experiment.