Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/314

 296 The Drama, 1860-1918 many brilliant promises which have finally thinned out and never materialized. At the present moment we have every reason to believe that Clare Kummer {Good Gracious, Anna- belle, Republic Theatre, 31 October, 1916, and A Successful Calamity, Booth Theatre, 5 February, 191 7), Robert Housam {The Gypsy Trail, Plymouth Theatre, 4 December, 191 7), the Hattons, W. J. Hurlbut, and Channing Pollock will contribute something to the future theatre. The drama activity is constant, but uneven and fitful in quality. There is a depression somewhere, as there always has been in the theatre, and that depression has resulted, at times, in impetuous rebellion against the manner in which the theatre is run. While the democratic mass still supports musical comedy, which is as much our national art as goldenrod is our national flower; while the moving picture has deflected many pens into channels of scenario writing, — as it has deflected actors from the legitimate stage, — there still seems to be a public clamouring for a theatre of art and ideas. The spirit of secession, upon which the Shaw-Galsworthy-Barker school of plajrvmghts flourished in England, seems at times to have flared up in America. We have had our Independent Theatres, our National Art Theatre Societies, our New Theatres, our Leagues for the support of the better drama. But these, while having some permanent effects, have not as yet changed the face of theatrical conditions. Even the New Theatre (which opened 6 November, 1909, and lasted nearly three years) — an institution begun on a money guarantee rather than on a body of ideas and a public that believed in them — was able to get from the drama market but one original American play for its repertory (Sheldon's The Nigger), unless we include Mary Austin's The Arrow Maker (27 February, 191 1) — a thoughtful, accurate study of Indian life. What, therefore, seems to be the salvation of the artist of the theatre? How will he gain his freedom from the dictates of the commercial manager? One way out was hailed by Percy MacKaye and others — the rise of the civic spirit, which caught hold of the idea begun in England by Louis N. Parker, who re- vived the conception of the mediaeval guild pageant and applied it to local history. To the standard of this idea there flocked numberless enthusiasts: MacKaye, Thomas Wood Stevens,