Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1914 — Players and Authors Can Eliminate Plays That Are Unclean [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Players and Authors Can Eliminate Plays That Are Unclean

By the Rev. STEPHEN S. WISE of New York City

DEJECTION should not be raised to the frank and serious discussion of sex problems, but the trouble is that we have had VERY MUCH FRANKNESS AND VERY "LITTLE SERIOUSNESS. It is conceivable that the white slave problem could be presented in such a way as to be salutary and serviceable, but we have had white slave plays which do nothing more than STIMULATE AN UNWHOLESOME AND MORBID CURIOSITY instead of driving home a moral lesson. WE SHALL HAVE NO BETTERING OF CONDITIONS OF THE DRAMA UNTIL THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE STAGE BEGIN TO PROTEST AGAINST THE INDIGNITY WHICH IS OFFERED THEM IN fTHAT THEY ARE COMPELLED TO WASTE THEIR GIFTS UPON THE INANE AND UNCLEAN THINGS WHICH THE MODERN STAGE TOO IOFTEN GIVES US. M H I do not agree with a distinguished critic who condemns the “present system of ignorant and conscienceless commercial management.” But it must be pointed out not only that the theater has “been TOO COMPLETELY COMMERCIALIZED, but that the control of the theaters of the land has been overcentralized, an overcentralization which has made the theaters throughout the land dependent upon Broadway’s theatrical sewers. . ' ' THREE THINGS MUST BE MORALIZED IF THE PLAY IS TO COME TO ITS OWN AGAIN—FIRST, THE STAGE AND THE DRAMA ITSELF, INCLUDING THE PLAYERS; SECOND, AUTHORS AND MANAGERS, AND, THIRD, THE PUBLIC.

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