more and more difficult. This is due in part to cheap and hasty work on the part of the writers, in part to the fact that the old lines are naturally breaking down. The most common development of American plays just now seems to be toward a mixed type which gravitates between farce and melodrama. G. M. Cohan's "Seven Keys to Baldpate," produced several seasons ago, was an early example of this form of play, and it still remains the cleverest. It hit a popular chord and such a play as "Cheating Cheaters" in 1916 is a result. Farce and sentiment also are mixed in the native type our more popular playwrights are evolving. The result of this mixture too often is that the sentiment does not ring true. True sentiment is difficult without serious character portrayal; it becomes mere mawkishness; but the more naïve theatre-goers seem to relish it. A case in point is "Turn to the Right," produced in the autumn, by Winchell Smith and John E. Hazzard. Of the 53 American plays of the year, 13 may be classed without any quarrel as farce; in fact they are so classed on the programmes by the authors themselves. The so-called comedies number 19, though a careful critic would be forced to list many of them as farces. This makes a total of 32 comic plays, as against 21 plays which in part or wholly can come under the classification of drama. Of these 21, some, like Booth Tarkington's "Mister Antonio," played by Otis Skinner, are but comedies Best Plays of the Year.-The best plays of the year, aside, of course, from the revivals, have been chiefly of foreign authorship. It is significant that G. B. Shaw remains in 1916, as he has been for almost a decade, one of the most popular of English-speaking playwrights in this country and the author whose work is awaited with the most anticipation. In 1916 he was represented on the stage in New York by four plays, "Captain Brassbound's Conversion," revived by Miss Grace George; "Major Barbara," produced by the same actress; "Getting Married," produced by William Faversham in the autumn, and "The Great Catherine," a one-act skit, played by Gertrude Kingston at the Neighborhood Playhouse. The smooth, intelligent, polished ensemble acting of "Getting Married," together with the quality of the drama, made the production notable. Miss Kingston's performance as Catherine was also one of the acting achievements of the season. Perhaps the most notable production of the year, however, was that of Galsworthy's tragedy "Justice,” a play written several years ago but never acted professionally in America until the spring of 1916. It marks high water in the thesis play in English, and is a drama of strangely moving character and burning sincerity. The performance was admirable in every respect and the grim play was unexpectedly successful, although seven theatres in New York refused to house it, their managers predicting failure. Another notable production, made by Winthrop Ames, was "Pierrot the Prodigal," which is "L'Enfant Prodigue," a famous French pantomime first acted in New York at Augustin Daly's Theatre a quarter of a century ago and at that time a failure. Mr. Ames supplied charming scenery, a skilled cast, an excellent orchestra, and brought it to life again, this time with much popular favor. It exem. plifies the delicate art of pantomime at its most charming and eloquent, and gave to the autumn season of 1916 a touch of poetic grace sorely needed. touched with a hint of more serious purpose. Others, like Bayard Veiller's "The Thirteenth Chair," are outand-out melodramas. The proportion of seriously emotional plays, with the emphasis on character drawing or on a problem of conduct, is actually very small. It may truthfully be said that 1916 has been a year of light, even frivolous, native drama. How far this is due to the European War, to the pressure of grim reality on our daily consciousness so that we seek the theatre as a relief, perhaps time alone can tell. It is significant that for some years after our own Civil War our stage was given over almost entirely to frivolity. War is Among the native plays produced, not a patron of the arts of the theatre. | few can be detected which seem from The this near view of any enduring_value, | outside the standard playhouses or nor did any new playwrights of much of various clubs of amateurs. promise emerge. On the whole, of the time apparently has come when we full-length plays, the prize should are taking the theatre partially into perhaps be given to "Old Lady 31," a our own hands, and creating compacomedy by Rachel Crothers, based on nies which will produce other things a novel. This play, capitally acted, than the "best-seller" type of play. tells the story of a destitute old cou- Stage Craft and Acting.-The ice ple, of how the husband was taken was broken for the advance of the with the wife into an old ladies' home newer type of stage decoration and where he became No. 31, and of the scenery in 1915 (A. Y. B., 1915, p. many adventures which befell him 744), and 1916 saw further progress. there. It is a play of quaint humor This progress was most marked in the and much sentiment, and discloses productions of the Washington Square no little truthful observation and Players, who began indeed as rebels knowledge of human nature. It is from the old order. Joseph Urban,forwork of genuine human values. merly of Vienna, a man of little origThe one-act plays of native author-inal talent but an excellent copyist of ship produced by the Washington | German models, has been busy all the Square Players, who in the spring of 1916 moved into the Comedy Theatre on Broadway, thus entering into more direct competition with the established playhouses, were on the whole of considerably more interest than their longer commercial rivals. "The Clod," by Lewis Beach, a melodramatic tragedy of our Civil War but with a real spiritual significance, and "Trifles," a tale of the effect on a woman of lonely farm life, written by Susan Glaspell, were two Washington Square dramas which stood out above the general level of the year. They were effective in the theatre, and when read they would bear enduring and thoughtful scrutiny. In short, they were pieces of genuine dramatic literature. This year, making sets not only for such musical pieces as the Ziegfeld "Follies," but for Mr. Hackett's production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." This latter play was staged by Ordynski, a pupil of Max Reinhardt, with a certain conventionalization of posing and speech which gave the whole production a highly original flavor of style. Bakst, the Russian scenic artist, has made designs for the big Hippodrome. Above all, Robert E. Jones, a native American, has come into his own, and has been kept constantly employed, chiefly by the manager, Arthur Hopkins, making sets not only for a fanciful play, "The Happy Ending," but for a realistic drama and for a farce. farce, "Good Gracious, Annabelle," he Indeed, the productions of the handled with a nice blend of the imWashington Square Players, of Miss pressionistic and the conventional oldKingston at the Neighborhood Thea- fashioned scenery, not offending those tre, including Lord Dunsany's "The who must see a set that "looks like Queen's Enemies," and of Stuart the place," and yet creating an attrac Walker at his Portmanteau Theatre, tive design of form and color, in the including two other plays by Dun- mood of the drama, and simple, unsany, were easily among the most in- cluttered with useless furniture, leavteresting features of the year. None ing something to the imagination. of these organizations is confined to Add to this the fact that another one spot. Even the Washington American is making scenery for the Square Players are sending out a sec- Metropolitan Opera House, and that ond company on tour. All of them Maxfield Parrish has prepared the are bringing to many people drama scenery and costumes for a fairy play with an imaginative appeal, a range to be produced early in 1917, and the of fancy, beyond that of the ordinary prospect for the real scenic artist to theatre. The works of Lord Dunsany, get a chance in our native theatre especially, unique in our language, looks brighter than ever before. There have made great strides toward pop- is no lack in this country of men with ularity during the year, entirely the combined architectural and picthrough the efforts of these workers torial gifts and the mechanical dex terity to create a genuine American | merely the most obvious and widely school of stage craft. All they need is proper encouragement and proper opportunity for experiment. Less can be said about the progress in acting during the year. The small experimental theatres have as yet developed no notable talent. The theatre of commerce during the year, at least, seems to have developed none either. Charming young girls come forward each season, but they lack the opportunity to practice, and they do not play rôles of sufficient depth to develop their possibly latent powers. John Barrymore, a young actor hitherto identified with romantic comedy, was notably successful in the pathetic rôle of the young clerk in Galsworthy's "Justice." Paul Clerget, a Frenchman, was splendid as the father in "Pierrot, the Prodigal." Reginald Barlow as the solitary man in the old ladies' home, in "Old Lady 31," acted with unction and comic zest and a fine feeling for character. John Drew, dropping his former type of part and appearing as Major Pendennis in a dramatization of Thackeray's novel by Langdon Mitchell, demonstrated that his long training and great technical skill fit him well for other things than fashion-plate heroes. Ruth Chatterton, a young woman of much personal charm, in A. E. Thomas's pretty romantic comedy "Come Out of the Kitchen," showed growth in expertness, proving that perhaps she will some day become a first-rate artist. Actors like Otis Skinner and George Arliss, who are capable of giving us the thrill of really great acting, were both unfortunate in their selection of plays, as was also Cyril Maude. Mrs. Fiske spent the year in "Erstwhile Susan," her vehicle of the season before. The truth is, the kind of play we are getting today does not invite acting of sweep and passion. There is no sweep and no passion in the plays. Stock Companies and Motion Pictures. It was a good year for the stock companies, especially in the Middle West. It would be too much to say that these stock companies, as a rule, represent anything of importance to the art of the theatre, because they are hastily assembled, carelessly conducted, and usually play popular of Broadway successes, two or three seasons old. Yet they do rep resent a fairly cheap form of amusement considerably above the motion pictures in intellectual appeal, and consequently their increase in number and their greater receipts indicate an increasing public demand for the spoken drama. Moreover, in some cases, notably at the Municipal Theatre, Northampton, Mass., these stock companies vary the popular fare with better plays, and strive genuinely to serve the community more or less as a library should serve it. Since the motion pictures are generally referred to by their manufac turers as "film dramas," we may close our review with a brief mention of them. As in the past, New York has been treated to several spectacular "film dramas," occupying legitimate theatres and asking prices sometimes as high as the spoken drama. But none of them has duplicated the success of "The Birth of a Nation," and most of them have been failures at the advanced price. An exception is "A Daughter of the Gods," in which Annette Kellerman and other mermaids are seen swimming in a transparent ocean, the beauty and grace of the spectacle atoning for the silly story. "Intolerance," by the creator of "The Birth of a Nation," proved to be a case of the mountain laboring and bringing forth a mouse. It would appear that after the first flush of novelty has gone, the motion picture, no matter how long and how costly to manufacture, cannot compete on the same terms with the spoken drama. The public regard it as something of less value in dollars and cents, as one of the varieties of cheap amusement. This might not be so true were it not for the fact that the motion pictures have made no appreciable progress artistically. They still tell exactly the same sort of story they have been telling over and over, in just about the same conventionalized way. far as 1916 has disclosed, the motion picture has made no artistic progress, and not to progress in this world is to go backward. The spoken drama has nothing to fear from the film variety. It will continue to hold an audience sufficient for its needs. So Fiction. The greatest productivity | to notice as "best sellers." Of these in creative literature in the United the following have been most popuStates during 1916 has been, as usual, lar: Booth Tarkington's Seventeen in works of fiction. The publication (Harpers); Eleanor H. Porter's Just of novels and short stories, however, David (Houghton, Mifflin Co.); Ellen seems to have been somewhat less Glasgow's Life and Gabriella (Douthan that of 1915, which was some- bleday, Page & Co.); Frank H. Spearwhat greater than the publication of man's Nan of Music Mountain (Scrib1914. It is impossible to present ex- ners); Henry K. Webster's The Real act statistics on this subject; the Adventure (Bobbs-Merrill Co.); Jean entire production of fiction in books Webster's Dear Enemy (Century and periodicals is now so very great Co.); Harold Bell Wright's When a that no one makes an attempt to Man's a Man (Book Supply Co.); comprehend it. The statistics pub- Kathleen Norris's The Heart of Rachlished in the Publishers' Weekly, how- el (Doubleday, Page & Co.); Mary K. ever, give some idea of the total pro- Rinehart's Tish (Houghton, Mifflin duction of books which may be called Co.); and Rupert Hughes's Clipped fiction. The total number of books Wings (Harpers.) These names have (including pamphlets) published in appeared more than once on the the United States in 1914 was 8,563; monthly lists of best sellers, and some in 1915 it was 6,932; the figures for will appear oftener still, for the books 1916 are not yet available. Of these published in the fall have not yet the books classified as fiction by had time to make due impression on American authors in 1914 numbered the public mind. The precise relation 689; in 1915, 643; for 1916 the fig- of these lists to literature is not ures are not yet complete but an es- known. They have now been pubtimate based on the publication of the lished by the Bookman and the Pubfirst six months would give a total lishers' Weekly for a good many of 626. Of these books about one- years. A study of the best sellers fourth are usually new editions of in the past shows that many books books published in other years. Of once enormously popular have_no this considerable amount of fiction, claim to lasting remembrance. But which includes but a very few of the this fact expresses merely one of the immense number of stories and nov- truisms of literary history. It is els published in the many periodicals, also the case that some best sellers only about a half attract any general are books of real value, and further attention. Lists or summaries regu- that many books of real value never larly published by the Dial and other become best sellers. Still the lists literary papers rarely mention more show certain directions of popular than half of what is included in the interest and certain ways of meetstatistics as fiction. The Dial lists ing it. included 216 in 1914, 231 in 1915, and 212 in 1916, a result somewhat different from what one would have inferred from the general statistics. Of this great number of novels and short stories a few present themselves There have been during the year a number of severe criticisms of American literature, some by Americans, some by others. The general point of such criticism has generally been either that our fiction is commercial, such as will please our rather conventional and sentimental reading public, or else that it is not especially American, that it is rather a pale copy of foreign work. In the mass of fiction published, much will be found open to either one or the other criticism. But the books that have attracted more general attention are not apt to be at fault in either direction. They are generally very American in subject as well as in general style, and if they suffer from conventionality and sentimentality it is from sharing unconsciously in the common faults of our time as of most other times. Most of our better novels, nowadays, are of the kind that used to be called "realistic"; they are views of the life about us that we all know. A good many of them are strongly colored with the ideas that now interest people,- —some of the best with different conceptions of the position and possibilities open to women in modern life. Ellen Glasgow's Life and Gabriella (Doubleday, Page & Co.) is the story of a Southern girl who, finding that she must leave her husband, makes a career for herself. Mrs. Deland's The Rising Tide (Harpers) presents with the author's usual clear-sighted sympathy the case of the ambitious girl who finds herself in revolt against the life about her. Henry K. Webster's The Real Adventure (Bobbs-Merrill Co.) gives the experience of a woman who feels that marriage cannot be true union unless a Woman can feel herself a 'somebody who can be independent if necessary. Sara M. Cleghorn's The Spinster (Holt) is a girl who with the easy opportunity of comfortable marriage in pleasant circumstances chooses rather to make an individual career for herself. Others are stories of men, sometimes written with an idea of a "theory of life." G. A. Chamberlain's John Bogardus (Century Co.) tells the wanderings in search of experience of a young man who had been carefully trained for academic ease. Charles G. Norris's Amateur (Doran) shows the mistakes of a young man in the so-called artistic circles of New York. Willard H. Wright's The Man of Promise (Lane) is a rather hectic and conventional account of a youthful gen ius who felt that he must burst the barriers of current conventionalism and made a failure of it. Elias Tobenkin's Witte Arrives (Stokes) is a far more convincing record of a young immigrant who grew into a fine and true American. In some books the author has been interested chiefly in some definite phase of modern life, as in Nathan Kussy's The Abyss (Macmillans), which is a careful study, with here and there a touch of literary tradition, of the world of tramp, bum, and hobo; or in Kate L. Bosher's People Like That (Harpers), a somewhat less realistic story of "the other half"; or in Florence Olmstead's Father Bernard's Parish (Scribners), which presents through the medium of an engaging story the mixed population of upper New York; or in W. W. Wells's The Whirligig of Time (Stokes), which deals with student life. Quite by itself is Booth Tarkington's amusing and natural tale of boy life, Seventeen (Harpers). There are not so many stories of careful local color as there used to be. Grace King's The Pleasant Ways of St. Médard (Holt) is a beautiful and delicate picture of Louisiana at the close of the war, full of the sentiment of place and the spirit of the character that has made the new South. J. S. Dresser's Gibbie of Clamshell Alley (Dodd, Mead & Co.) is a fine story of a little boy in a New England fishing village. Joseph C. Lincoln's Mary 'Gusta (Appletons) is one of his well known Cape Cod stories, as amusing and true as any of his earlier work. But more books still have little especial idea or local color; they are simply stories of American life, told generally by people who know well the circumstances which they describe; if they have some definite idea concerning life it does little more than give direction to their work. Mrs. Watts's The Rudder (Macmillans) is a novel of central Ohio with a number of characters carefully studied and fully presented. Samuel Merwin's The Trufflers (Bobbs-Merrill Co.) is full of the present Bohemian atmosphere of Washington Square, but is well marked by the conviction that such life is merely a rooting about for enjoyment. Juliet W. Tompkins' The Seed of the Righteous (Bobbs-Merrill |