A NATIONAL APPEAL

Evening Post, Volume 137, Issue CXI, 10 June 1926, Page 9

A NATIONAL APPEAL

SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL

MR. BERNARD SHAW'S VIEWS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, Ist April.

It is only a week to-day since the "Daily Telegraph" Fund for the re-erec-tion of the Memorial Theatre at Strat-ford-on-Avon, and its endowment, was opened, and already the amount received has exceeded £10,000. April is Shakespeare's month. The birthday is customarily attributed to 23rd April, 1564, and upon the same day in 1916—it is also St. George's Day—our greatest poet died. The theatrical managers are interesting themselves heartily in a suggestion that leading actors and actresses should voice a timely reminder from innumerable stages. Some of the London stores may mark the anniversary by arranging distinctive displays. Efforts , will be made to reach the motorists and the other country lovers who know the delights of the poot's native Warwickshire. The American invasion this seasen promises to be larger than it has ever been —it began as early as January—and Stratford-on-Avon will welcome an increasing number of Transatlantic "pilgrims." They will do their share to see that Shakespeare's players are well bestowed," to. adapt the lines from "Hamlet," as used by "Punch" this week in a cartoon designed to further the success of the Memorial Fund. A QUICK RECOVERY. Behind this bare announcement, following immediately upon the burning down of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon, lies a story of unflinching determination on>- the part of those responsible for the festival productions which have become famous throughout the world. The story is told by Mr. W. Bridges Adams, Director of the Festival. "The reccery of Stratford after the destruction of the Theatre is, I think, a matter of pride to all concerned," he said. "From the immediate point of view that disaster seemed final, there was every legitimate reason for abandoning this year's Festival. But I do not think that such an idea entered for one moment into the minds of those responsible. While the ruins were still burning we proceeded in a body to the large new cinema. An architect was in attendance. One party investigated the front of the house and devised office and cloakroom accommodation, while another inspected the stage and arranged for necessary extensions. Within an liour we were able to announce that the Festival would proceed as usual, opening on 12th April, and that the audience would actually see and hear better and be more comfortably seated than in the old building. The cost of the alterations, involving the addition of nearly 3000 sq. feet to the existing structure, was raised by subscription in half an hour at a town meeting held two days later. FESTIVAL WILL PROCEED. "Our most serious task," he continued, •was to replace in five weeks scenery, properties, and wardrobe which had taken more than five years to accumulate. (In the case of the wardrobe, perhaps, twenty-five years would be nearer the mark). Nearly all of this was' destroyed, and to provide for new productions on the scale to which our public is accustomed has been a stiff battle against time. Fortunately, all recent scene models were still in existence; they were dispatched at once to the contractor. Mr. Arthur Bourchier generously contributed many properties from his stores, and the new wardrobe will be provided from various sources. The complete revision of seven productions, which were all waiting to go into rehearsal, within fortyeight- hours of the tire, was not an easy matter, but it has been accomplished, and —everything will proceed according to schedule." MR. G. B. SHAW'S APPEAL. Mr. G. B. Shaw sent a hundred guineas towards the rebuilding of the Memorial Theatre, but he seems to have been misunderstood somewhat in a covering letter he wrote. He has been widely reported as saying that he can see no reason why the Memorial Theatre should not be in London. "I am amazed," said Mr. Shaw, in a later letter, "to find myself represented as disparaging the replacement of the' Memorial Theatre at Stratford, and advancing London's claim as against it. I cannot account for this misunderstanding. I have been feverishly ill, but I really cannot have raved to this extent. As to saying that Stratford is an uninteresting town, I have frequented it so devotedly for many years past that I have come to regard it almost as my birthplace; and Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has publicly appealed to the Mayor to throw me out of it lest I should set up a rival tradition. Stratford at one end of the Cotswolds and Glastonbury at the other are the moßt fascinating places of pilgrimage in England, and the most lovably English. "Those who have any money to spare for Brjtish dramatic art should, for this year at least, concentrate on replacing the burnt-out Memorial Theatre in Stratford. Jts ruins are an unbearable disfigurement, nil the worse as the old building, though hopeless internally for theatrical purposes, was by no means unpresentable in the copied way of the architecture of the jnid-nineteenth century. To leave it a smoky ruin as it now is would be a national disgrace. Commercial enterprise will not help. It is true that commercial enterprise has its eye on Stratford; but what it proposes is to demolish the famous old Clopton bridge nnd replace it by a ferro-concrete viaduct which will enable motorists to dash all out across tho Avon and off to Birmingham through the tail end of the town without noticing the existence of the most celebrated birthplace in the western world. "Local patriotism docs what it can; but the town is too small to carry its giant en its own shoulders. It can cater for the pilgrims, and maintain the pleasant spaciousness of the streets and riverside; but this, and the replacement of the present incongruous Town Hall with a more suitable one, is as much as it can afford; nnd more should not be expected from it. Were it not for Mr. Archibald Flower, who has followed his family tradition by adopting Shakespeare, and found him sometimes, I fear, a very expensive and troublesome orphan, the great tradition of the town might have broken its back instead of strengthening it. The case for a general subscription from the whole English-speaking world is rrresistible." 85, Fleet street.