comunity drama - 1917 - pierce mackaye

7/29/2019 Comunity Drama - 1917 - Pierce Mackaye

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CORNELLUNIVERSITYLIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOMEOF THE SAGE ENDQ^MJENTFUND GIVEN IN 1891 BYHENRY WILLIAMS SAGE


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Cornell UniversityLibrary

The original of tliis book is intlie Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions inthe United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027170343


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Cornell University LibraryPN 3203.M16Community drama:

3 1924 027 170 343

COMMUMTY DRAMA


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WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYEFLAYSThe Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy.Jeanne D'Arc. A Tragedy.Sappho and Phaon. A Tragedy.Fenris the Wolf. A Tragedy.A Garland to Sylvia. A Dramatic Reverie.The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous.Yankee Fantasies. Five One-act Plays.Mater. An American Study in Comedy.Anti-Matrimony. A Satirical Comedy.To-MoRROW. A Play in Three Acts.A Thousand Years Ago. A Romance of the Orient.MASQUES

Caliban. A Community Masque.Saint Louis. A Civic Masque.Sanctuary. A Bird Masque.The New Citizenship. A Civic Ritual.OPERAS

SiNBAD, THE Sailor. A Fantasy.The Immigrants. A Tragedy.The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy.POEMSThe Sistine Eve, and Other Poems.Uriel, and Other Poems.Lincoln. A Centenary Ode.The Present Hour. Poems of War and Peace.Poems and Plays. In Two Volumes.ESSA YSThe Playhouse and the Play.The Civic Theatre.A Substitute for War.Community Drama. An Interpretation.

ALSO (As Editor)The Canterbury Tales. A Modem Rendering into

Prose.The Modern Reader's Chaucer (with ProfessorJ. S. P. Tatlock).

AT ALL BOOKSELLERS


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COMMUNITY DRAMAIts Motive and Method ofNEIGHBORLINESSAn Interpretation

byPERCY MACKAYE

BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANYThe Riverside Press Cambridge

1917


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h bibooiojCOFYRIGHTp 19I7, BY PERCY MACKAYB

ALL RIGHTS RBSSRVED

Published June 79/7


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ToP. S.


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PREFACEThe present essay is the substance

of an address delivered by me beforethe American Civic Association at itsannual meeting, at the Hotel Willard,Washington, D.C., December 13, 1916,Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson pre-siding. At that conference of workersin the fields of public education, re-creation, and community organizing,the experts there gathered expressedtheir very real enthusiasm for the prac-ticability and progressiveness of theideas which I sought to suggest fortheir earnest consideration.

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PREFACEThose ideas -^ for a new method of

community building, for a dynamic,cooperative means of education incommunity aims, for a loyalty to thoseaims at once spontaneous and disci-plined, for a purposeful efficiency ofneighborliness apply not less, butmore, since our entrance into theWorld War with the exalted purposeexpressed by President Wilson of help-ing to make the world permanently" safe for democracy."

Especially, I think, at this time theymight be applied with excellent resultsto the inspiring task, immense in itsscope and meaning, which the newlyappointed Federal Commission on

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PREFACETraining Camp Activities is under-taking for America. That task is toestablish " a great affirmative system,instead of a merely sterile negativeone," for the healthful developmentof our nation's young men under mili-tary conscription, as an offset to thescourging menaces of drink and sexualimmorality.Here is the opportunity for America

to create a new kind of army a newkind of community in arms for the at-tainment ofdemocraticworld-freedoman army in which " the moral equiva-lent of war " shall be quickened andorganized within the very fabric ofthe fighting machine itself: a fighting

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PREFACEforce, in which virile and wholesomeexpression through cooperative sportsand arts shall be substituted for anoutworn ideal of repression, and gohand in hand with effective martialdiscipline, not lessening but increasingits efficiency.

Besides such activities within thecamps themselves as unit communi-ties, the relationship of the camps totheir environs hold important possi-bilities of social development.

Concerning these, one of the FederalCommissioners ^ writes : "A part of ourwork will be the promotion of harmo-

Dr. Joseph E. Raycroft, of PrincetonUniversity, in the New York Times Magazine,Sunday, May 20, 1917.


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PREFACEnious and beneficial relations betweenthe camps and the neighboring towns."To cooperate in this work, a numberof agencies such as the Y.M.C.A.,the Y.W.C.A., the Red Cross, thechurches are, he says, to be countedupon " to make a new environmentfor the soldier when off duty, and toput life into an ideal that will striveto return him finally to his home abetter man than when he left it."To these agencies surely there will

be added the expert art of recreationalexpression. Community Drama.'

' Community Drama, as its meaning ishere conceived, is of course directly bound upwith the Community Music Movement, asthat is being developed under the leadership

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PREFACEThus the Motive and Method sug-

gested in this essay the Christianmotive of efficient ' neighborliness,'and the art method of dramatic or-ganization may well be directly ap-plied to the constructive solution ofan American problem, national andinternational in its implications.

In consonance with these ideas,the important community experiment,tried with encouraging results a yearago through the production of thein New York of Arthur Farwell and Harry H.Barnhart. With that is also directly relatedthe Community Centre Movement, under theleadership of John Collier, of the People's Insti-tute, New York, as well as many recreationalactivities of the Playgrounds Association,under the presidency of Joseph Lee.

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PREFACECommunity Masque " Caliban " inNew York, is being repeated, on aneven larger scale, in Boston. There,at the date of this preface, the CalibanCommittee of Greater Boston arebusily organizing more than seventhousand men and women for theproduction of " Caliban," at the Har-vard Stadium, from June 28 to July9, for the monetary benefit of the RedCross and the Reserve Officers' Train-ing Corps, Harvard University, andthe social benefit of the whole Bostoncommunity.To assist the purposes of the Com-mittee, this essay is now published,for whatever service it may render to

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PREFACEthose community objects in Bostonand elsewhere.

Percy MacKayeBoston, 22 May 1917


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COMMUNITY DRAMA


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COMMUNITY DRAMAAN INTERPRETATION

"Can we poor human beings neverrealize our quality without destruc-tion?"H. G. "Wells asks this question in a

recent volume on the war.^And in a recent series of articles ^ in

the "New York Times," "a distin-guished publicist," Cosmos, discussingthe basis of world peace, writes:

' Italy, France, and Britain at War, p. 13.' Tenth article of the series, which has

been published as a volume, The Basis ofWorld Peace.

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COMMUNITY DRAMAMore important than the declaration

of rights and duties erf nations, and moreimportant than the machinery whichmay be erected to give that declarationvitality and force, is the spirit of thepeoples who unite in taking these steps.What the worid is waiting for, andwhat it must achieve before the foun-dations of a durable peace are securelylaid, is what President Butler has wellcalled the International Mind "thathabit of regarding the several nationsof the civilized worid as friendly andcooperating equals in spreading enlight-enment and culture throughout theworld."

,

The International Mind: in the pro-cess of achieving that, an answer maybe found to the question of Wells.

Yes, the quality of human beingscan be realized without destruction;

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COMMUNITY DRAMAbut it can never be realized withoutimagination. It is precisely becauseour peace is so devoid of organized,constructive imagination, that the or-ganized destruction of war appeals sopotently to the imaginations of men,by giving scope for their qualities ofspiritual heroism.War provides a method a drastic,

compelling method for creating thenational mind. Its method is organi-zation for competition: the unify-ing of nations against nations."What the world is waiting for" is

a method, more excelling, for creatingthe international mind: a method oforganization for cooperation: the


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COMMUNITY DRAMAhannonizing of nations with nations of communities with communities.This does not imply less nationality inour culture, but more civilized culturein our nationalism.

In approaching my subject I canapproach it in no less a sense than aworld sense: and I weigh carefully mythought when I say that "what theworld is waiting for" is to be found, Ibelieve, in the basic method of socialservice involved in Community Drama.That method is organization for

cooperation; it is testable by the mostmodest beginnings, but the scope ofits principle is vast or it is noth-ing. And it is not nothing. I have

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COMMUNITY DRAMAwatched its seed take root in soil thatseemed sterile ; I have seen it take formfrom almost nothing, watched its por-tentous growth, its magical flowering,its colossal bearing of fruit and thesowing forth again of its own seed instrong fecundity.No, the life- meaning of Community

Drama is universal. It is so, becauseits life is very old as old and peren-nially young as humanity.Under its new guises in America it

has had as yet small critical attention very scant philosophic regard. Ina world of journalism, its immediateobvious aspects, its shining banners,its spectacular color, its blare of music,

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COMMUNITY DRAMAits thousands massed in stadiums andon hillsides these aspects indeedhave received large public attention,the hectic publicity accorded to pass-ing shows. But not yet its realitiesits deep, quiet, regenerating realities.For those have chiefly concerned a fewartists, and many, many plain people,mostly young people. But artists andyoung people, especially when theyare happy in what they are doing, areseldom given to critical valuation oftheir actions. They are aware, oftenintensely aware, of a great movementon which they are borne along: butthe source and the goal of their mov-ing is vague to them.

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COMMUNITY DRAMAThen is needed the great interpre-

tera searching imagination, critical,and prophetic, to clarify the meaningand purpose of this living momentum.That is to-day what the social move-

mentv^Mly_called_Pagean^2_^o-foundly lacks^ its authentic inter-preters. In dramatics and civics athousand routineers glut the columnsof the press with their daily and weeklycleverness or platitude: but where thegreat tides of drama and civic life meetand mingle, to give birth to a new life-stream for human intercourse, thereare still primeval silences of under-standing, broken only by the voicesof a few prophetic pioneers. The more

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COMMUNITY DRAMApity for this lack of interpreters inAmerica, for this new life-stream isone of the very arteries of our futuredemocracy.So it was, nearly a century ago,

when the inarticulate gropings of so-cial democracy were waiting for asynthetic expounder to blazon the phi-losophy and the vision of socialism.Then came Karl Marx, and now thegreat stream he charted has beensounded and explored by thousands,and has taken its relative place on themap of social discovery.By analogy, what is needed to-day

is a synthetic philosopher for Com-munity Drama one who shall con-

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COMMUNITY DRAMAstructively chart its immense aestheticand sociological meanings; a GeorgeBrandes and John Dewey in one toclarify this new-world art of democ-racy. Yet perhaps even more thanthese would be needed to identify thatamorphous art with its reality in-stinctive religion. For that, indeed, inessence, is what Conmiunity Drama is the ritual of democratic religion:plastic, aspiring, playful, creative,child-like, religious instinct: the socialreligion of the only commandment ofChrist: neighborliness.For it leads to a very simple creed,

this community drama neighborli-ness: to love one's neighbor enough to

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COMMUNITY DRAMAdiscover God in him. But those whosee God believe in Him. And thosewho believe in Him express their be-lief, and so they create symbols of it;but because their belief is deep withemotion, and with conflict of emo-tions, they create dramatic symbolsdramatic art, communal dramatic art.And so we reach back to the old

beginnings of civilized man to thedramatic religion of early Greece, tothe dance, the chanted speech, thechoral song, the organized pageantryof cooperating neighbors, expressingthe God in themselves.

It is the story of the folk arts of allEuropean peoples. Our own modem

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COMMUNITY DRAMAcultures in art consist mainly in rem-nants and ruins of these communalfolk arts, which the armored tanks ofMachine Industrialismhave left stand-ing in the No Man's Land of NationalCompetition.

In the new age before us, it is notfor us, as individual archaeologists, topatch and remodel those ruins; it israther for us, as cooperating artists, tobuild from the ground up fresh homesand temples of the communal imagina-tion.

I wonder if I can suggest how thisapplies to community drama to-day.Consider for a moment that consum-mation in art of the Antique World

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COMMUNITY DRAMAthe Parthenon; considerone of the con-summations of the Middle Ages thecathedral at Rheims. As a result of thecompetitions of the merely nationalmind, the cannon of the Turks haveleft in ruins the one, the bombs of thePrussians the other.Now I think it has never been em-

phasized at least, to point a mod-em moral in social art that eachof these temples (itself the perfectflowering of many human generations)was the home and holy place ofcommunity drama. In the marblefriezes of the Parthenon Phidias por-trayed what? Phases of the dra-matic rites of his ancient community;

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COMMUNITY DRAMAon the cathedral at Rheims are sculp-tured have we ever thought aboutit? actors in dramatic rituals of amediaeval community.These facts are not often interpreted

by modem professors of drama, or bydramatic critics on Broadway; but arethey not pregnant with meaning forour own to-morrow? For me at leastthey mean this : that the golden age ofcommunity life and art does not lie be-hind us, but before usthat the samecolossal impulses of social art whichcreated those perfect examples, are in-stincts perennially human, and may beorganized again, by will and imagina-tion, to still nobler consummations.

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COMMUNITY DRAMASo on the No Man's Land of to-

day's waste, destruction and industrialanarchy, the community dramatistsof to-morrow the engineers, archi-tects, dancers, musicians, artists, lead-ers of religious play shall organizein beauty the communities of EveryMan's Land.A far cry is it? from that crude

little pageant, last week, in the subur-ban slums! A far cry indeed; yet it isonly a far cry that is heard by thegods. And often the gods' answercomes quickly.

In the autumn of 1913 such a farcry was called in the community ofSt. Louis from a little group of some

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COMMUNITY DRAMAdozen citizens. On five nights of thefollowing May, half a million specta-tors, and seven thousand participants,shared there in a civic ritual of theirown. " Oberammergau !" said one whosat in the audience (Mr. Ben Greet)"I can think of nothing else thanOberammergau, to compare this to."And more than two years afterward,the Mayor of St. Louis (Henry W.Kiel) telegraphed to the Caliban Com-mittee of Greater Boston:The Pageant and Masque produced

in Saint Louis in 1914 was of incalcu-lable benefit to the city. The produc-tion received the hearty support of thecitizens and instilled in them a new civicspirit which resulted in Lhti iiduplioiiof

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COMMUNITY DRAMAa new city charter and the voting ofbonds for the completion of our muni-cipal bridge where similar bond issueshad been refused before.

One night at that time, after thethird ^riosmtmcQ, I.stood talking withone of the Scotch group, reeiiiitedfrom all parts of the city. "A funnything this," he said to me; "I wouldnahave thought till now that those dagoescould be such damn good fellers. We 'reproposin' to form a permanent clubus Scotch and the dagoes and Germanlads just to keep in touch and notlet us forget this."And those of twenty nationalities

who sang together there in the com-18


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COMMUNITY DRAMAmunitychorus are still singing together peraianently organized.After all, the International Mindneeds no travel to foster it: here inAmerica, it might be made a hardyhome-product, by a sprinkling of theright soul mixture: two parts imagi-nation, and one part patience is agood mixture.

Neighborliness in a little town maybeget the neighborliness of natioris.The International Mind is the neigh-borly mind, though the neighborhoodbe but a village; but the merely na-tional mind is the unneighborly mind,though the nation boast its hundredmillions. Let me not be misunder-

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COMMUNITY DRAMAstood. Nationality is a precious thing;solidarity of national spirit is an in-spiring thing; but the spirit of nation-aUty need not be it must not beopposed to the spirit of humanity.Whenever it becomes so, every truepatriot must for his country's sakerebel from it to this larger allegiancefor to serve one's country well is tohelp it serve the world.The difference is between mine and

ours. My country, my town, my flag,my culture this attitude incar-nates the very spirit of egoistic un-neighborliness; but our country, ourtown, our flag, our culture this spiritimplies that sharing of one's own

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COMMUNITY DRAMAwhich recognizes the world as one com-munity of neighbors.But this is the very watchword of

community drama. "My pageant" isinconceivable. " Our show" is the typ-ical vernacular of every civic festival.There is, however, this tragic defect

in neighborliness, that it is likely to beslack and static, whereas its oppositetends to be dynamic and thorough. _War is the efficiency of unneighbor-

liness. Conmiunity Drama seeks theefficiency of neighborliness. It seeks toprovide and, rightly organized, itdoes provide a substitute for in-effectual goodwill in the effectual def-inite processes of cooperative art. ^

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COMMUNITY DRAMAIt takes its first hints from child-

hood. Children are nearly always def-inite and cooperative. When childneighbors meet, they play together;that is, each relates himself to a com-munity process; or if they squabble,they cooperate in groups to do so. Thegames of childhood, modem survivalsof ancient folk art (when they havenot been perverted by a spirit of mili-tary nationalism), are, then, first les-sons in community drama."Here we go round the mulberry

bush!" not "here / go round," but"we." It is always "we," among chil-dren: we small neighbors, linked handin hand, each self-subordinated but

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COMMUNITY DRAMAdefinitely related, in rhythm and lineand motion, to the larger, self-includ-ing circle symbol of the world itself.The production of the "CEdipus" ofSophocles is but a perfect maturing ofsuch childhood art.So from as little and homely a thing

as a "mulberry bush" we may culti-vate and gather fruit of the Interna-tional Mind.And now I hope I shall not be con-

strued as meaning that all which isneeded to solve the World War is tovote a general May festival. (Suchhas been the fate of other comments ofmine on "A Substitute for War.")

I will add, then, rather obviously,23


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COMMUNITY DRAMAthat I am referring for the momentnot to May festivals, nor to CentralPowers and Allies, but to a natural in-stinct in childhood the play instinctof neighborhness which, if culti-vated scientifically, for some genera-tions, might well revolutionize societyby extirpating the unneighboriy causesof war.But this task itself is no child's play.

For to carry onward this cultivationover the borders of chUdhood into theleisure hours of a weary and disillu-sioned maturity of toiling millionsthat becomes a task for expert science,the science of cooperative expressionwhich is dramatic art; a task as vari-


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COMMUNITY DRAMAous and universal in scope as the laborsof engineering and architecture.This science or art (which you will)

has for some hundreds of years of theTraditional Drama of Modem Europebeen the expert servant of Commer-cialism, in the task of catering amuse-ment to the leisure chiefly of the iipperand middle classes. So it has charmedand mystified the worid for centuries.So it is still very busy and expert; onBroadway and the Strand and in thecapitals of Europe.But now, in our twentieth century,here in America, the social workers of

democracy are just beginning to seethat this science of the Magician,

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COMMUNITY DRAMAwhose scope includes both Harlequinand Hamlet, presents an expert meth-od to achieve their own different endand object the regeneration of theleisure of all classes.Why not, then, apply it to this ob-

ject? They have begun to do so, withencouraging results. Speaking simplyfrom my own experience, as author ordirector or both, I have been witnessto those results in at least three large-scale festival tests : the first at Glouces-ter, Massachusetts, in 1908, the sec-ond at St. Louis, in 1914, the third atNew York, in 1916 (the production of"Caliban").Concerning these I have written


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COMMUNITY DRAMAelsewhere. To touch on their many-sidedness here is beyond my presentscope. But it is significant to mentionthat one of the community results of"Caliban" in New York was the for-mation there of a permanent asso-ciation of those connected with itsproduction headed by the Mayor'scommittee, whose chairman, Mr. OttoH. Kahn, in launching the new associa-tion, was warmly supported by socialthinkers as widely divergent as Mr.James M. Beck and Mr. Morris Hill-quit.On a smaller scale I have watched

the same principles at work nota-bly in the application of the theatre's

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COMMUNITY DRAMAart to social service for a great nationaland international cause the conser-vation of birds. In 1913 "Sanctuary,"a bird masque, was produced sometwenty miles from a railway at thebird sanctuary of Ernest HaroldBaynes in the little town of Meriden,New Hampshire. Since then, thatlittle masque has met its social-servicetest by definitely establishing morethan a hundred bird-clubs and numer-ous sanctuaries throughout the States,and by enlisting the participation ofover four thousand children in themasque itself.

"What, then, is the psychology of thisnew application of the art of the thea-


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COMMUNITY DRAMAtre to social service? What spiritualchange does this new method of socialscience achieve, or seek to achieve, incommunity life?

This: to construct and make per-manent fresh channels for social con-sciousness; to convert the mentalityof competition into the mentality ofcooperation; to create, in every homecommunity, habits of the InternationalMind.But more than a technique of coop-

eration, does the method involved inCommunity Drama give scope fordeveloping that "quality" in humanbeings, which undoubtedly is devel-oped by the searching tests of war,

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COMMUNITY DRAMAand concerning which Sarah Bernhardtwrites of the soldiers of France, whoattended her dramatic performanceson the battle front:They did not suffer in the tragedy of

the play; they rose to it. They did notcry with watery tears that streameddown their faces; the tears just filledtheir eyes so that they could see betterthe great destiny of their own Uves.

If the meaning of this "quality"implies the happy rendering of humansouls in service to a cause infinitelylarger than themselves, beneficial tothe world through their own conmiu-nity; if it implies increased initiative,energizing of the will, the disciplineof patience, the poise of self-restraint,

so


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COMMUNITY DRAA4Athe releasing growth of self-expression,^and the spiritualizing ardor of self-'sacrifice yes, all of these qualitiesof the great "quality" heroism are asimplicit in the social meaning of Com-munity Drama as in that of war. Thatboth seldom measure up to the fullstandards of their quality is as true ofthe one as of the other. Of Commu-nity Drama, at least, the worst thatcan be uttered of its failures is thestigma of flamboyant and ineffectualgoodwill; whereas the reverse imageof war's heroism is unutterable bru-tality.During the rehearsals of the Masque

of St. Louis, the young man who en-31


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COMMUNITY DRAMAacted the part of St. Louis was nearlyalways enthusiastically prompt. Themonth was May. He was a medicalstudent. His final examinations, onwhich his professional career mightdepend, came the first of June. Yet hewas never absent. One day, however,about ten minutes late, he rushed in,out of breath.

"Sorry, sir, to be late," he said."What was the matter?""Beg pardon, sir," he answered, "I I got married, I just came from

the church."Hastening from the altar to enroll in

khaki has grown common for youngmen in these days. This young man


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COMMUNITY DRAMAwas perhaps the first to hasten fromthe altar to his post of discipUne ina Community Drama. Prophetically,perhaps, he may not be the last. Tohim, his community a far greaterconcern than his private affairs, awedding breakfast, or a doctor's de-gree his community had called him.That was enough. His reply waswholly spontaneous, but it was nonethe less responsible, definite and dis-ciplined. There are no court martialsin community masques; personal re-sponsibility and public opinion taketheir place. If St. Louis the Actorhad deserted the Masque, St. Louisthe City would have disowned him;


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COMMUNITY DRAMAbut of course he would never havedreamed of deserting.At the production of "Caliban" in

New York, the community chorus satconcealed above the stage, wholly outof sight of the performances. Afterthe last performance, one of the sing-ers, whom I had never met, a shop-girl, came to me and said, with deepfeeling:"Why has it got to end?""You 've enjoyed seeing it? " I asked

tentatively.

"Oh, seeing it; I didn't mean that,"she answered. "I mean, just being init singing with the others.""But not seeing it?" I asked again.

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COMMUNITY DRAMA"Oh, no, I've never seen it. I sing

alto, and there were n't enough altosto be spared to get off and see it. ButI'll never get over the joy of being init as long as I live. Things are differ-ent now. It was wonderful. I wantedto thank you."

Indeed, it was wonderful: Shutaway from the show itself, with somehundreds of others, in a crowdedwooden loft, not even her name in thelong lists on the programme but,singing, and "in it!" I wanted tothank her, but I could n't if I 'd knownhow. She had hurried away, weeping.These are but two instances, out of

thousands (many more poignant), of35


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COMMUNITY DRAMAa kind of education in human "qual-ity," which our educators and states-men have too long ignored.There is, in brief, a hardihood bom

of joy, as well as of pain, resulting evenmore in social good, provided it besubmitted to the tests of social disci-pline. That discipline is found in art,community art, for which the art ofthe theatre is capable of providing thesupreme method. That art itself isexpertness, discipline, efficiency,organ-ization to the nth power or it isnothing. And that it is not nothing,many hundreds of years of infinitelyvaried resourcefulness have givenproof behind the scenes.

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COMMUNITY DRAMANow the time has struck for that

expert art to come forth in the openfor the roof of the traditional theatreto be undomed and let in the ancientstars, for its walls to be pushed backby a million aspiring arms of the peo-ple, till the soul of the community per-forms its magic rites behind the scenesas splendidly as among the inspiredcongregators of the amphitheatre.

Outside of those traditional wallsthe people are surging in an amazingcivic consciousness. Out of a mightyneed, our people are crying out for co-operation a valid means of coopera-tion as never before; but they donot yet realize that the doors of those

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COMMUNITY DRAMAthousands of commercial playhouses,which call them nightly by millions,enticing billions of their dollars annu-ally that those doors lead inwardto a laboratory of art, that has nothinginherently to do with commerce, theart of the theatre, which offers theman expert, scientific method of socialcooperation as far in advance of thedull and bungling methods of tradi-tional civics as the automobile out-dates the one-horse shay.' There in the art of the theatre oursocial workers should delay no longerto search for what they are seeking;there emphatically our organizers ofpageants must look for their expert


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COMMUNITY DRAMAleaders, if the pageantry movement inAmerica is to rise permanently to itsrightful power of social regeneration,and not peter out through the failuresof a glorious goodwill to be as glori-ously eflOicient.This cannot be emphasized too

much: the art of pageantry is the artof the theatre, or it is nothing. Thatis why it has often seemed to be noth-ing, when its organizers have failed torealize the nature of what they wereorganizing.That, indeed, is why I think thename itself. Pageantry, is misleading;

for pageantry, ui its right meaning, isbut one phase, and not at all the most

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COMMUNITY DRAMAimportant phase, of this co6perativ(^rt of the theatre; and that is why ]greatly prefer the name CommunitiDrama, to designate both the movement and the method, which are involved in this new American relatioiof art to democracy.Once realizing, then, that in this

movement and method we are concemed with an expert art, we shalrealize that its destiny will depencupon expert artists as communitjleaders. We must be no more toler-ant of bad art than of bad civics, foibad art is bad sociology and bad edu-cation.

If it is to achieve its constructive40


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COMMUNITY DRAMAideals of peace, Community Dramamust be organized with the perma-nency and trained efficiency of theregular army for it represents thebeginnings of an army of peace. Itcannot be made in committees, or bycommittees; in its early stages, it mustindeed be fostered by committees, butit can only be made by trained crea-tive artists, expert in the art of thetheatre and inspired by the spirit ofthe community. Only so can the artspirit inherent in every communityfind its authentic leadership.These artists themselves must be

social-minded; the committees mustbe art-minded. The artist leaders are

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COMMUNITY DRAMAthe officers of the staff, under onedirector general; the army they leadis recruited from the community onthe largest scale practicable. The com-mittees are the volunteer citizens, whohelp to supply this staff and armyof art with recruits, subalterns, eco-nomic supplies, production grounds,housing, etc.For a national community dramawith the growth of this movement in

the future a national civic theatrewould appropriately be responsible forthe staff, and the government itselffor the committees.The multitudinous aspects eco-

nomic, artistic, sociologic of such42


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COMMUNITY DRAMAorganization are not within my pres-ent compass. I have dealt, by sug-gestion, with a few in my book on"The Civic Theatre."^ Here I can onlyemphasize the central thought of mysubject.

Neighborliness: I would like to comeback to that word and thought, andrepeat it with the word drama. Neigh-borliness and drama, the two are soseldom encountered on Forty-secondStreet!And yet, even in the commercial-

ized world of amusement, what else isit often but the vague, lonely yearn-

* The Civic Theatre, Mitchell Kennerley,New York.43


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COMMUNITY DRAMAing to be neighbor to some one, whichdraws many idle thousands from thehotels to the playhouses, and moreworking thousands from homes of thepoor mothers with their knittingand children, boys with their chums,men with theircronies and sweethearts to crowd the dim-ht caverns of themovies?But none of these take part innone of these create the illusions of

theiramusement.There inthehouses ofcommerce is no ritual: there is merelya mute spectatorship, paid for to thosewho know and care nothing for thatnudging, dumb aspiration to becomeneighbors.

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COMMUNITY DRAMABut with Community Drama, there

it is otherwise. There is participation;there is creative expression; there isneighborly ritual. For communitydrama is nothing else than the tech-nique of neighborliness the art^jmrexcellence, of resolving the estrange-ni^t and conflict of^^aal elerne^into harmony. ^

Dealing with, and appealing to,"groups, it is then essentially an artof symbolism: for only a symbol car-ries meaning in the large, to a mul-titude, and by a symbol only can amultitude cooperate to express anemotion in conmion.

Neighborliness symbolism 45


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COMMUNITY DRAMAdrama: these three. In our new ritualof democracy, the last only is addedto the master method of the great sym-bolist of Nazareth, to complement andorganize for our day and race the sim-ple message of his one social command-ment.

Indeed, if the inheritance of Greekculture had permeated the race ofPalestine in the days of Christ, Jesushimself must have become the mighti-est of dramatists, as he was the great-est of moral symbolists; for to attainthe community objects of his teach-ing, he could not have ignored, andthe poet in him must soon have mas-tered, the technique of assembled mul-

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COMMUNITY DRAMAtitudes created by iEschylus andSophocles. "The Good Samaritan,""The Casting of the First Stone,""The Things which are Caesar's,"these might have survived to-day asthe texts of dramas once chanted,danced, and acted in the people'stheatres of Jerusalem if the dra-matic inheritance of Euripides hadbeen available to Jesus.

With these things in mind, then,interpreting the essence of my sub-ject as I see it, my ideal of commu-nity drama is this : By means of largeand nobly sensuous symbolism, to har-monize the complex art inheritances of

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COMMUNITY DRAMA! drama with the simplicity of Christ'si social message, for the inspiration andexpression of growing democracy.

I

In brief, splendidly and efficientlyto be neighbors.

THE END


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APPENDIX


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APPENDIXSome Accounts of the Production of

a Community DramaIn reference to the New York 1916production of "Caliban," mentioned in

the foregoing essay, the following ex-cerpts from accounts pf the event in theNew York press at the time may be ofpertinence for the reader.New York took a long step ahead of the

rest of the dramatic world last night with thepresentation of Percy MacKaye's Masque," Caliban."Nothing quite so magnificent has ever been

shown in this city or in the country. For thefirst time in the history of the arts of thetheater it is America that has evolved a newdramatic form, as potential in its way as anyof the products of modern Europe. A NewYork poet, aided by fellow-artists and themen, women, and children of this big and

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APPENDIXbusy city, conceived and visualized for 15,000spectators at a single performance a pageantdrama that will accomplish but half its pur-pose if it fails to revolutionize the theater anddramatic art in many of its aspects. Purely asa community undertaking, the production of" Caliban " was unique.The Masque would have been a tremendoussuccess if all the seats in the Stadium, whichhad been doubled for the purpose, had re-mained empty.We have seen the Russian ballet, the color-ful dance drama, combining music, movement,and color; we have seen the Greek classics re-vived in a new manner by Granville Barkerin the big outdoors; we have had an IsadoraDuncan Dionysian festival indoors; we haveseen the wonderful art of Joseph Urban; wehave, in short, followed the new workers inthe theater in all their brilliant achievements,but last night an audience saw for the firsttime a coordination of all these forces a pro- jduction that combined within its scope allthat is best in the work of the creators of

jbeauty in the theater. It was a true historyof the arts of the theater, in which all thesearts in their most improved forms were em-

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APPENDIXployed; yet the Masque had a form andmethod all its own. That is why " Caliban

"is unique, and that is why its creator, PercyMacKaye, stands today as the foremostworker in the American theater, a man whocannot be ignored henceforth in recording theevolution of the art of the theater. Brook-lyn Eagle.The 15,000 persons who journeyed from

every corner of the city at sundown to thevast open-air theater on the Heights, foundprepared for them there an extraordinarypageant, a spectacle of memorable beauty.The staggering undertaking had been carriedthrough with no visible mishaps worth men-tioning. The Masque is a success, and remainsa notable achievement. It was a fine thingto have done. It is an unforgettable thing tosee. New York Times.

In scope, in beauty, and in large significanceit fulfilled and surpassed all that had beenpromised for it. With almost magical effectsits scenes and actions reached back into thecycles and cenj^ies of antiguity, and voicedthe audience. Something of the majesty of

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APPENDIXa ceremonial entered into the enactment ofthis classic Masque; the multitudes partici-pating broadened it into a carnival fSte; aplay it was, an epical drama, in which antiq-uity and modernity joined hands and dancedupon the "yellow sands" of now, within theoutward circle of eternity. New YorkMorning Telegraph.

It was little less than a stroke of genius toblend a basic allegory of the human soul withthe majestic movement of drama throughthe civilized ages.Such an achievement is surely a foretaste

of the eventful realization of the democraticideal, when art will be made not only for thepeople, but also by the people, and all thepeople will cooperate to make the commonlife more beautiful until the communal lifeitself shall become a living work of art.New York American.The wonderful pageants of the interludes

are sights never to be forgotten. No one whocares a whit for the art of the theater shouldfail to see this most remarkable communitymasque. New York Evening Sun.

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APPENDIXThe story and plot are simplicity itself.The attendance at the " Caliban " perform-ances at the City College Stadium raises the

question of enlarging the Stadium for similarcommunity uses in the future. That this vastshrine of athletic sports should have been ren-dered inadequate not by football but by the pro-duction of drama and pageantry is a curiousoutcome New York World.The production proved remarkably success-

ful for the manner in which it fulfilled its func-tion of being a community masque, enlistingthe services of people from every section of thecity, geographically and socially, and in thematter of obtaining public support.It is estimated that 135,000 persons hadseen the Masque. The demand for seats hadbeen so great that several extra performanceswere added. New York Times.

" The most wonderful spectacle I have everseen," said my companion as, engulfed in thecrowd, we moved slowly out of the Stadium.

" Caliban: By the Yellow Sands," should begiven again and again. To the stadiums andthe parks of our democracy " Caliban " will,I hope, introduce a form of entertainment

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APPENDIXequaling in popularity and surpassing inbeauty and wholesomeness the vast spectaclesof the Roman Coliseum. Ernest HamlinAbbott, in " The Outlook."

And out thereinthe starlight atthe Stadium,under the open sky and in the amphitheater,black with people, and the great arc lightsflashing on the three stages of the pageantas community group after community grouppassed in review the Pan-Hellenic League,the East Side Settlements, the GreenwichVillagers, the Bronx district, the schools, therepresentatives of all races, classes, and con-ditions in the great city I saw the benig-nant ghost of Steele MacKaye looking downon his dream come true through his son.Henry E. Dixey, in " The Chicago SundayHerald."

It ranks in the field of spirit with the epoch-making inventions in the field of materialthings.

Percy MacKaye has linked the pageantambition with an ambition no less thanHellenic in the mood of Plato and Soph-ocles. John Collier, in " The Survey."

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APPENDIXThe production deserves to be recorded as

a civic event of almost unexampled magnitude,achieved by the concerted effort of all classesof a great community. Mr. MacKaye has suc-ceeded in achieving the apparently impos-sible. Clayton Hamilton, in " Vogue."The Masque leaves immense impressions

on my mind. It is in effect inspiring, gigantic,grand. One's reflections broadly encompassa picture of the evolution of man from hisbrutish nature to the appreciation of thepower of love in its highest by the civilizationconceived by art.Two hours or more of beautiful visions, ofbeautiful trysts. To many present its inspira-tion was akin to the good to the human soulof a great and glorious reUgious picture ofpageant upon pageant such as no one manalone has ever seen, yet such as this old worldhas borne harmonious color and move-ment, samplers of physique and soul, which weapprehend is man's true birthright, createdby him, built upon the apprehension thatsomething burned within him that wouldmake him greater than the brutes!One might take one's eyes from the pag-

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APPENDIXeantry without losing its effect: crescents ofcolors, with 18,000 human beings in full view;the blue, star-dented sky, the rays of blue,amber and gold, and pink from the lightingtowers, the hush and reverent expectancy ofthat spellbound, multitudinous audience, agentle breeze to fan the garments of the play-ers into graceful folds, the ring, thunder, andecho of the actors' voices, all spoke of thepotency and beauty of humanity. St. ClairBayfield, in " The Stage," London.

Aside from the sumptuousness of its actualphysical representation upon the stage, thereis a blinding glory in the very conception ofthe magnificent Masque, " Caliban," devisedand written by Percy MacKaye.The Masque is a structure of music, light,dance, acting, song, scenic values, pantomime the whole builded into a monument ofdramatic art that lifts as the apex of itsupward-pushing pyramid the " spoken word." Re-view of Reviews.There is now no longer any question that

Mr. MacKaye's conception of community artis established in America. The New Re-public.

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APPENDIXIn the bowl of the Stadium of the City Col-

lege of New York, lighted with the glare ofpowerful lights, an audience of 15,000 peoplegathered last night to see Percy MacKaye'sShakespeare Masque, the largest dramatic rep-resentation ever given in this city. For hoursbefore " Caliban: By the Yellow Sands" begancrowds poured from the subway, drove up inautomobiles, and arrived on busses, fillingthe streets and filing slowly into the greatopen-air theater. They came from all partsof the city, from the East Side and West Side,and some even from Boston and Philadelphia.Clouds had lifted, revealing a clear, star-litnight.

Slowly the white of the Stadium and thegleam of the scaffolding disappeared as blackfigures took their places, until the amphi-theater was filled with a huge crowd, expect-ant, motionless. New York Evening Post.


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APPENDIXThe Mayor's Honorary Committee for the

Production of "Calihan" in New YorkOno H. Kahn, Chairman

Herbert AdamsDr. Felix AdlerJacob P. AdlerJohn G. AgarRobert AitkenWinthrop AmesDonn BarberJoseph BarondessMrs. August BelmontGutzon BorglumChancellor Ehuer E. BrownHenry BruereArnold BrunnerFres. Nicholas Murray ButlerAbraham CahanMrs. William Aster ChandlerWilliam M. ChaseJoseph H. ChoateThomas W. ChurchillPaul D. CravathJohn D. CrimminsGeorge CromwellR. Fulton CuttingWalter DamroschR. S. DavisHenry P. DavisonRobt. W. deForestMrs. Camden C. DikeA. J. DittenhoeferCleveland H. DodgeCaroline B. Dow

Frank L. DowlingMrs. H. Edward DreierMax EastmanSamuel H. EvinsJohn H. FinleyNed Arden FloodDaniel C. FrenchCharles Dana GibsonBertram C. GoodhueRt. Rev. David H. GreerJules GuerinMrs. Daniel GuggenheimMrs. Benjamin GuinessNorman HapgoodMrs. J. Borden HarrimanWilliam Laurel HarrisCol. George HarveyTimothy HealyA. Barton HepburnMorris HillquitJames P. HollandRev. John Haynes HolmesFrederic C. HoweArthur Curtiss JamesMrs. Paul KennadayDr. J. J. KindredDarwin P. KingsleyLee KohnsDr. George F. EunzThomas W. LamontDr. Henry M. Leipsiger

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APPENDIXAdolph LewisohnM. J. Lavelle, V.G.Walter LippmannPhilip LydigClarence H. MackayMiss Elizabeth MarburyEdwin MarkhamMiss Helen MarotDr. Brander MatthewsRev. Howard MelishDr. Appleton MorganJ. P. MorganDr. Henry MoskowitzAdolph S. OchsRalph PulitzerPercy R. Pyne, 2dW. C. ReickElihu RootEdward A. RumelyJacob M. SchiffMortimer L. SchiffJames Speyer

Francis Lynde StetsonFrederic A. StokesJ. G. Phelps StokesJosef StranksyOscar S. StrausAugustus ThomasLouis UntermeyerMrs. William K. VanderbiltOswald Garrison VillardMiss Lillian D. WaldDr. James J. WalshCabot WardJ. Alden WeirCharles D. WetmoreEdward J. WheelerF. W. WhitridgeThomas W. WhittleGeorge WickershamWilliam G. WillcoxDr. Stephen S. WiseH. J. Wright


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CALIBANBY THE YELLOW SANDSA Community Masque

By PERCY MAGKAYEMusic by ARTHUR FARWELL

For the Benefit ofThe Metropolitan ChapterAMERICAN RED CROSS

and theRESERVE OFFICERS TRAINING CORPS

at Harvard UniversityCIVIC DIRECTORS

D. M. Claghorn, General DirectorB. S. POUZZNER, Assistant General Director

Ernest Harold Baynes, Campaign DirectorT. D'Arcy Brophy, Administrative Director

Hazel MacKaye, Community DirectorMargaret Wilson Syiivua.-h, Recruiting Director

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PRODUCTION STAFFProducing the Masque, in co-operation with the Author

at the

HARVARD STADIUMJune 28 to July 9, 1917Producing Director

Frederick StanhopeDesigner of Scenes and Costumes

Robert Edmond JonesDirector of Orchestra and Chorus

Arthur ShepherdDirector ofDances Stage ManagerVirginia Tanner Irving Fichel

Director ofLightingTheodore Brown

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CALIBAN COMMITTEE OFGREATER BOSTON420 BOYLSTON STREET

Tickets: 415 Boylston St.Telephone Back Bay 8966

His Excellency Samuel W. McCall,Governor of Massachusetts

Honorary ChairmanHonorable James M. Curley, Mayor of Boston

Chairman Governor's CommitteeRalph Adams Cram, ChairTnanHenry V. Cunningham,

Vice-ChairmanExecutive CommitteeFrederick P. Fish, ChairmanGeorge W. Coleman, Vice-ChairmanHarold Peabody, SecretaryCharles F. Allen, Treasurer

Mrs. W. E. Birdsall Judge LeveroniMrs. Charles Burbank I. W. LitchfieldD. M. Claghorn Miss Ellen F. MasonLouis A. Coolidge Fred W. MooreRalph Adams Cram James P. MunroeHenry Cunningham Miss Marion C. NicholsHoward H. Davenport Miss Julia C. PrendergastCarl Dreyfus Daniel L. PrendergastCharles L. Edgar B. S. PouzznerMrs. George R. Fearing George S. SmithMrs. W. F. Fitzgerald George W. TupperW. T. A. Fitzgerald Addison L. WinshipMrs. A. W. Kaffenberg

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Finance CommitteeN. Penrose Hallowell, Chairman

Allston Burr E. V. R. ThayerW. E. Chick Bowen TuftsJames Jackson Edwin S. WebsterSabin P. SangerJohn Noble, Counsel (of Loring, Coolidge & Noble)State Street Trust Company, Depository


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comunity drama - 1917 - pierce mackaye

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