Not more than twelve years have passed since the hills of Lomaland resounded with the soul-stirring stanzas of the Eumenides, the open-air drama being directed and supervised in all its detail by Katherine Tingley, and played by her students. She then declared that a new awakening in this art was at hand and that the drama would be restored once more to its true dignity as a most potent means of expressing the life of the Soul. The seed at that moment planted knowingly by her fell into a rich soil—today there is hardly a country where an attempt has not been made to present ancient life by representations in the open air.
This year, in Lomaland, another note has been struck, a new impulse given by the presentation of The Aroma of Athens in the open-air Greek Theater. More plays are to follow, of different lands and times, opening up limitless opportunities for all who are in earnest and have the welfare of the nations at heart. Ancient life is here given in unstained purity, suffused with the inspiring splendor of soul-life. Here all the rays come from within, from above; the false glamor from below has no place.
Elsewhere efforts have not always been successful, and we need not wonder at that. Where do we find knowledge of ancient times except in regard to scattered details of superficial life? Modern plays are few which can withstand the silent environment of nature, for there the conflict of human passions are out of place, as also much of the modern way of acting, dissecting emotions and sensations. Nature demands sincerity, and requires that a rôle should not only be acted, but actually lived, supported by a worthy life. Then only will nature help in many a hidden way; then only shall we have before our eyes the drama of all ages: Man learning to use his own powers wisely and to work in harmony with Nature.
One of the happier attempts outside Lomaland seems to have been that made in Sweden this summer by a band of young and enthusiastic actors. Their success may be due to the fact that they started out with the sincere wish to give the people out in the country who never had seen a play, and especially the young, an opportunity to obtain a glimpse of their ancient life. Refreshing simplicity and heart-feeling characterized their whole work, going around, as they did, from place to place where the young usually meet in summertime, selecting a fit place on a mountain, at a lake, in a grove, or whatever they could find, the audience having to resort to the flower-sprinkled grassy slope of a hill. Over one hundred representations were given in this way, most of them far away from cities.
Even as a string vibrates when its note is sounded from a distance, so the deeper heart-strings vibrate when their note is struck; and it seems as if a new means of reaching the people has been found in such representations.
If only the highest and purest notes be sounded, as was the case in Lomaland, new and helpful forces are called into play in human life.
INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY: by H. Coryn, M. D., M. R. C. S.
WILL the turn of Keeley (of motor fame) come for vindication? The turn of the Keeley principle, the disintegration of atoms by sound, and the consequent liberation of their stored energy, undoubtedly will.