London Stage Attacked by Jerome K. Jerome

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 68, 11 June 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

London Stage Attacked by Jerome K. Jerome

Daring Plays to Make the House Pay PLEA FOR LITTLE THEATRES A play to be successful in the West End must draw something approaching £2,000 a week, and when riches like that come pouring in through the box-office window, Art flies out oj the stage door. This criticism of the London stage j was levelled by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, author of “Three Men in a Boat,” and “The Passing of the Third Floor Back,” • from the stage at Bristol’s Little j Theatre recently. He appealed for an intellectual re- ■ vival on the British stage, and thought j the future depended upon little ' theatres. Four hundred years 8.C., he said, ' the crowds that thronged the ampi- : theatre at Athens shou.lted their ap- ! proval of Greek tragedy. At the Globe 1 Theatre, in the spacious days of good Queen Bess, they stood throughout hot I afternoons to listen to Will Shakes- . peare. B,ut before such revival could be! hoped for they had to educate their j masters. EDUCATING PATRONS The theatre must set to work to educate its patrons. The big theatre dare not risk it. “As a friend of mine, a West End manager, said to me only a little while ago, ‘My expenses are £1,500 a week, and I cannot afford art.’ The big manager has to think of his mob. He does not ask whether a play is good or bad.” There was distinct danger at the present moment of the British stage becoming a sink of sexuality. To be successful every new play had to go a bit further —had to be more “daring” (it used to be spelt indecency). The thing works in a vicious circle. Out of London’s seven million inhabitants there must be quite a number of intelligent, educated men and women capable of appreciating good drama; sufficient of them, in all probability, to support a theatre —a little theatre. But they were scattered; the distances were so enormous. The whole amospliere of London was against Art. PAYING ITS WAY “In the provinces the Little Theatre gets known,” went on Mr. Jerome. “It does not have to advertise. It does not have to engage matinee idols and low comedians at salaries to make a judge’s mouth water. Its heroines’ dresses have not to be made by Lucille or Paquin. Good plays, good all-round acting, is all that is demanded of it. With any sort of luck, it ought to pay its way. Art cannot live on charity. “I should like to see a Little Theatre in every town of over 40,000 souls. And it could be done. Local patriotism would surely help. “The Little Theatre is wanted. It is needed to keep alive the English drama. At the present moment half the threatres in London are controlled from America. The other half soon will be. It is only a question of time. I say that the whole world would suffer an irreparable loss if the British | drama should be driven out of house 'and home or made to take service with alien masters. “I am hoping Bristol’s Little Theatre will greatly prosper —that it will help to show how the English drama, tossing on its bed of sickness in the poisoned air of Piccadilly Circus, may regain its health and vigour in the cleaner atmosphere of England’s country theatres.”