If the traditional theatre, then, is now in a rut which affords
no room for the one-act play, and if vaudeville is an empty
cradle for this branch of dramatic art, where shall we turn? The
one-act play to-day has found refuge and encouragement in the
experimental theatres, and among the amateurs. The best one-act
plays so far written in English have come out of Ireland, chiefly
from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin where they were first acted by a
company recruited from amateur players. Synge's "Riders to the
Sea," Yeats's "The Hour Glass," the comedies of Lady Gregory and
others of that school, have not only proved the power of this
form to carry the sense of reality, but its power as well to
reach tragic intensity or high poetic beauty. The sombre
loveliness and cleansing reality of Synge's masterpiece are
almost unrivaled in our short-play literature. Not from the Abbey
Theatre, but from the pen of an Irishman, Lord Dunsany, have come
such short fantasies as "The Gods of the Mountain" and "The
Glittering Gate," which the so-called "commercial" theatre has
quite ignored, but which have been played extensively by amateurs
and experimental theatres throughout America; and the latter
piece, especially, has probably been provocative of more
experimental stagecraft and a greater stimulation of poetic fancy
among amateur producers than any drama, short or long, written in
recent years.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30