DRAMA AS EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 20

DRAMA AS EDUCATION

WHAT SHAKESPEARE DOES FOR.

THE DOWN AND OUT.

. A dramatic revival, "national in its scope," and including all "classes from the university student to the villager, from the vicar to the gaolbird, is detected as the result of an inquiry by a Board of Education committee into the question of the drama in adult education, states the "Daily Chronicle." At Grasinere, for instance, where all the plays are spoken in dialect, "the players are drawn entirely from' the working people of the village (says the committee's report), and vary in age from small children to men and women over 70."

A remarkable fact is the hold which Shakespeare, classical plays, and "highbrow" drama generally exert upon the rural and industrial audiences. Miss Lilian Baylis, in giving an account to the committee of the Old Vie, said that when "Hamlet" was first played there the receipts were £5; but now when "Hamlet" was played in its entirety there was seldom even standing room in the theatre, which held 1700. The audiciec,' which consists mainly of tho working class,, Miss. Baylis described as the Old Vie's chief asset.

A boy, blinded in the war, could not be induced to take any interest in life until ho went to the Old Vie. to a performance of "Mignon," and since then ho has quite changed. Another man was cured of stuttering by his love for "Julius Caesar," of which he had learned every word. "There was another man," continued Miss Baylis, "who was on his way to commit suicide by throwing-himself over Waterloo Bridge, and happened to come into the theatre for a few minutes, not knowing what sort of entertainment was being given; It happened to he 'Everyman,' and he found in it something which gave him enough courage to live." Details of the Prison Commissioners' experiment in the use of drama as an educational instrument in prison were communicated to the committee. Volunteers were called for to read parts at one penal institution, and in the result an Indian of ferocious appearance acquired tfie part of Eosalind, and a guttural gentleman who had lived on tho wrong side of the barbed wire during tho. war became Jacques. "As You Like it" was a great success, as was "The Merchant of Venice."