Page:The Dial (Volume 76).djvu/263



HE reappearance of George M. Cohan has usually the effect of making everything else in the perishable theatre seem flat and tawdry in comparison; this year, by the grace of a slight diversion from his usual path, he has managed to call a great many features of the durable theatre into question. (I use these attractive words not in Gordon Craig's precise sense; the light and the serious theatre would be an equally accurate description of the two types.) For if Mr Cohan with his material, with his background and experience, can give so much aesthetic satisfaction, can give such intense pleasure to the contemplative mind, what becomes of the theatre burdened with loftiness and torn asunder with experimentation?

I do not know of another experimental theatre for which the auspices were so favourable as they were for the Provincetown Players of this year, in a theatre directed by Kenneth Macgowan, Eugene O'Neill, and Robert Edmond Jones; and I hasten to say that their first production, of Strindberg, goes far to answer the question I have just asked. It is clear that a reverential attitude toward the stage and an inclination toward modernism in any field are not sufficient causes for the creation of a theatre; in the present case you can omit the religion and the intellectual bias—if they exist—and still feel that the directors have a specific idea of what the theatre can be and, what is even more important for the patron, a genuine talent for the theatre itself. This exists apart from Mr Jones' abilities as an artist and Mr O'Neill's capacities as a dramatist; and it has given a sense of homogeneous growth, an existence and a style. Of the play itself it was interesting to note that in it the method of expressionism seemed to have reached not so much a beginning as a fulfilment; it is certainly more in one mode, and more successful in that mode, than ; genius, however neurotic, has this capacity to outstrip and anticipate talent. And although {{sc|The Spook Sonata|| is irritating at moments and seems to wander, the actors in it definitely accepted the mood which the directors created. Mr Howlett and Miss Eames in particular profited by the occasion to do excellent work. {{nop}}