Washington Square Plays

								

an intellectual "skit," which would equally suffer by prolongation.
"Eugenically Speaking" could certainly bear no further extension, unless
its mood were deepened into seriousness. Finally, "The Clod" approaches
the true episodic roundness of the one-act drama, or the short story,
in its best estate. Here is a single episode of reality, taken from its
context and set apart for contemplation. It begins at the proper moment
for understanding, it ends when the tale is told. There is here
more than a hint of the art of Guy de Maupassant. And the episode is
theatrically exciting--a prime requisite for practical performance, and
spiritually significant--a prime requisite for the serious consideration
of intelligent spectators. In these four plays, then, written for the
Washington Square Players, the one-act form demonstrates its right
to our attention and cultivation, for it takes interesting ideas or
situations which are incapable of expansion into longer dramas and makes
intelligent entertainment of what otherwise would be lost.
Because such organizations as the Abbey Theatre have demonstrated the
value of the one-act play in portraying local life, in stimulating a
local stage literature; because such organizations in America as the
Washington Square Players have demonstrated the superior value of the
one-act play as a weapon with which to win recognition and build up the
histrionic capacity to tackle longer works; and, finally, because the
one-act play offers such obvious advantages to amateurs, it seems fairly
certain that in the immediate future, at least, the one-act play in
America, as a serious art form, will be cultivated by the experimental
theatres, the so-called "Little Theatres," and by the more ambitious and
talented amateurs. As our experimental theatres increase in number--and
they are increasing--it will probably play its part, and perhaps no
insignificant a part, in the development of a national drama through
the development of a local drama and the cultivation of a taste
for self-expression in various communities. It is only when these
experimental theatres are sufficient in number, and the amateur
spirit has been sufficiently aroused in various communities, that the
commercial theatre of tradition will be seriously influenced. When that
time comes--if it does come--one of the results will undoubtedly be a
more flexible theatre, the growth of repertoire companies, the expansion
of the activities of popular players. In a more flexible theatre, where
repertoire is a rule rather than a strange and dreaded experiment, and
where actors pride themselves on versatility and the public honors them
for it, the one-act play will again have its place, but not then as a
curtain raiser or afterpiece, to pad out an evening or "send the suburbs
home happy," but as a serious branch of dramatic art. In that happy
day Barrie will not be the only first-class talent in the commercial
playhouse daring the one-act form, or at least able to induce a