Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/392

336 be tagged on to the end of a bill, at which time the unmannerly public decides to go home or hurry to some roof or other, or dining place?

I should like seeing the Brothers Rath likewise, perhaps as refined acrobatic artists as have been seen on our stage for some time, in a set that would show them to better advantage, and give the public a greater intimacy with the beauty of their act than can be had beyond the first six rows of the Winter Garden. They are interposed there as a break between burlesques, which is not the place for them. I would "give" them the stage while they are on it. Theirs is a muscular beauty which has not been excelled. I have no doubt that if I attempted to establish these ideas with the artists whom I spend so much time in championing, they would no doubt turn aside with the word "highbrow" on their lips. They would have to be shown that they need these things, that they need the old-fashioned ideas removed, and fresher ones put in their place. I have expressed this intention once before in print, perhaps not so vehemently. I should like to elaborate. I want a Metropolitan Opera for my project. An orchestra of that size for the larger concerted groups, numbers of stringed instruments for the wirewalkers and jugglers, a series of balanced woodwinds for others, and so on down the line, according to the quality of the performer. There should be a large stage for many elephants, ponies, dogs, tigers, seals. The stage should then be made more intimate for the solos, duets, trios, and quartets among the acrobats. I think a larger public should be made aware of the beauty and skill of these people, who spend their lives in perfecting grace and power of body, creating the always fascinating pattern and form, orchestration if you will, the orchestration of the muscles into a complete whole. You will of course say, go to the circus, and get it all at once. The circus is one of the most charming places in existence, because it is one of the last words in orchestrated physical splendour. But the circus is too diffused, too enormous in this country to permit of concentrated interest, attention, or pleasure. One goes away with many little bits. It is because the background is made up of restless nervous dots, all anxious to get the combined quota which they have paid for, when in reality they do not even get any one thing. It is the alert eye which can go over three rings and two stages at once and enjoy the pattern of each of them. It is a physical impossibility really.