THE DRAMA "EN DESHABILLE"

Evening Star, Issue 15481, 1 May 1914, Page 5

THE DRAMA "EN DESHABILLE"

OR WHAT THE PUBLIC REALLY GET. [By William Naas, in the ' Daily Chronicle.'] The Manager laid aside his leviathan cigar, withdrew a fond and fulsome gaze from the gaudy band that embellished its dusky girth, nodded affably to the Dramatist who had entered with a selfr deorecatory smile on his face and a play under his arm, and extended * pnagy hand of welcome. " Sit down, dear boy, he said, " and let"* have a loote at the goods." The Dramatist accepted the invitation. " What the public wants," said the Manager, speaking on behalf of the British nation in the present year of grace, "is the sort of play that no young.girl of 16 ought to see, but does; the sort of play that no self-respecting family can witness en masse, but can be taken to, separately when staying with, friends; the sort of play n man can take his friend's wife to, and a wife can visit with her next-door neighbor's husband." The Dramatist spread out his play. " You need not read the whole thing," said the Manager, cheerfully. "Just let me get the hang of it. What's it about?" "The hero " began the Dramatist. "Hero," said the Manager, with a ; sniff of suspicion. "Hero! We don't have, heroes nowadays." "Perhaps I should have said the chief male character," emended the Dramatist. "Well, go ahead. What's he like?" The Dramatist consulted his text. "Ho is a tall, dark, intellectual man " " Here, never mind that. We don't want any poetical stuff. Strike out the ' intellectual.' There's nothing doing in intellect. Make him an ordinary society woozler. Cut out his brains and morals, vou know. We want a wine, woman, and 1 You made me love you ' sort of chap." " But he has to sustain a strong part," protested the Dramatist. " Very well, then," acquiesced the Manager. " Make him a swell thief, gentleman cracksman, a dapper forger in a well-cut dress suit." " But I want him to marry the—the er —leading lady." "So he will, dear boy, so he will. Ho has only to occupy the centre of the stage long enough to have all his sins X-rayed out of him by the limelight man. Once in the limelight and girl is mine. That's technique, that is." The Dramatist put in a plea: " I should find it difficult to make such a drastic alteration." '

•' Well," said the Manager, assisting with a compromise, "how many times has he been divorced T"

"Why, never," began the Dramatist. The Manager looked at the other helplessly. " Not divorced! And do you expect the British public to take an interest in a man who hasn't been through the police court or. the bankruptcy court, or the divorce court? My dear boy, .pull yourself together. The public want to be amused, to have a hearty laugh." The Dramatist's cheek crimsoned. "Why, such a man as that would be a perfect cad." "Well, what of it? We aren't here to judge human nature." " But no decent society would tolerate such a beast."

" We're not out to inquire what decent society would tolerate," said the Manager amicably, "but to amuse the British public." "Such a tiling would be absurd," said the Dramatist. " Why in real life " "My dear boy," interposed the Manager, " we're at cross purposes. What on earth .has a modern play got to do with real life? Come, be sensible."

The Dramatist cast a hopeless glance at his interlocutor. "What are the women like?" asked tho Manager. "The heroine —I should say the chief female character—is a girl of 22." "Make it a woman of 36 or 40. Girls admire that age, and women who are having trouble with their figure like to see themselves cast for young parts. What is her past?" "T haven't provided her with a -past," said the X>ram»trs"t. ■

The Manager's voice rose io a shrill treble. "No past! My dear boy, you've, mistaken your vocation. You ought to be writing tracts, not plays." ' "You mean she must have a. past?" " My dear boy, don't insult the British public by asking them to sit in'the theatre for two hours and take an interest in a woman without a stain \ipon her character. Throw in some lovers." "But," pleaded the Dramatist, "it is essential that she should only be in love with the hero—l mean the chief male lead."

"Well," conceded the Manager, "that's all right if he's a married man." '"'But he isn't," said the Dramatist.

"Well, what's the fun in that?" asked the Manager. " I don't see anything particularly comic in a full-fledged girl being in love with a man she can marry without a breath of scandal."

"It isn't meant to be comic," urged the Dramatist.

"It must be funny screamingly funny," said the Manager. * " It's the only way we can get past the censor. It must be one long hilarious scream. That'll see you through the bedroom scenes, the undressing tableaux—in fact, you can have a pile of lingerie on the drawing room table, and hold up all the lucent intimacies of the ' feminine wardrobe one by one so long as you split your sides with laughter over them. That's high spirits, that is. Our British sense of the ridiculous."

The Dramatist's fingers fluttered over the pages of his manuscript like a wounded bird. "Now to come to Act II." " Oh, yes. A forest " The Manager laughed heartily. " A forest—really a forest! Look here, you ought to be writing something for a girls' high school breaking-up party. That's your mark." « But^—" "Cut it out," said the Manager,•. a. note of pity in his voice. " We- haven't got any forests in this country. Besides, if we had it wouldn't niako any difference. The second act of a modern play is ;i bedroom. There's a boom in beds. in the old days the heroine_ changed her mind every three and a hah" minutes. Now she changes her clothes. Put her to bed in Act- 2, mv boy, and then turn a mouse loose- in the old country house. That'll bring all the girls scudding through the limelight- to take refuge in the only mouse-proof room in the place." "What!" You mean in th-siv nightdresses?" asked the Dramatist. - " Don't say nightdresses." implored the Manager, " it's so indecent. Say ' nighteys,' and ' cammeys,' and ' pettis"' You'll have the censor stepping in if your dialogue isn't smart. Then," continued tho Manager, " get a well-divorced major with tbs regulation tooth-brush moustache that stamps him as a nut. '- Givo him a sore throat. -Let him wander about- tho old domain in his pyjamas ; let him catch up something to wrap round. his tonsils and send him wandering in the bedroom." "Good heavens," said the Dramatist.

"As soon as the ladies see him they fling away their cigarettes, drink up their liqueurs at a gulp, and scream in unison." " Why ?" asked the Dramatist: "Because about his throat," explained the Manager, " are wrapped a pair of silk stockings. Amd the. question is—Whcee? •Sensation, and quick curtain." " It all sounds to me a disgusting and vulgar melange," said the Dramatist. "T thought you were a playwright." "I thought so too—once," said the Dramatist.

" why pose as a dramatic critic? What's it got to do with you whether it's vulgar or unwholesome? " If the public don't tumble to it, why worry?" The Dramatist got lip, and. the Manager took np the manuscript and scanned it as he let the leaves slip through his fingere. " Why, good heavens," he exclaimed, in a tone of consternation, bending his brows on a particular passage, "you make your charactersr Jalk like educated people." "Yes, so'they are." The Manager nearly lost his temper. " You mustn't do it, my dear boy- You mustn't do it They must all talk, in the Aroftdest -dang." * -V, "" . '.. . ..-.■..• ■.':.'- v -an

"But it wouldn't at all fit in with the ideas they express," pleaded the Dramatist, with a faint protest... • ■ ■ " They don't want to express any ideas. They want to talk like the catalogue of a Great White Sale. They want '' But the Dramatist had fled. ' it • C