Miss Jane Cowl, the actress, and Mr. Christopher Morley have
been in hot debate on the subject of playgoers' manners. It all began with the Morley revivals at Hoboken, on the other side of the Hudson, of old-time melodramas done with a spice of sophisticated satire. Mr. Morley and his collaborators have succeeded in making their out-of-the-way theatre a fashionable resort for New York's intellectuals and junior smart set. A convention of the place is that it shall be uncon- ventional and that players and playgoers alike shall refuse to interpret the melodramas with solemn literalism. Audiences have been encouraged to enter into the spirit of the thing further by venting their opinions and feelings pointedly and audibly as the performances progressed. To Mr. Morley this is excellent fun. He glories in having recaptured something of the gusto of Elizabethan times in that, as he claims, he has aroused the modern playgoer from a merely passive to what he calls a healthy participative state. To Miss Cowl it is simply plain bad manners. Noisy audiences, she contends, may be all very well in movie houses and cabarets, but to encourage them in the legitimate theatre is to permit them to coarsen themselves, embarrass the players and serious playgoers and rob the theatre of its artistry and glamour.
Previous page
