How to Produce Children's Plays

How to Produce Children’s Plays

Selected Authors

How to Produce Children’s Plays Appreciation Series

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Cover Image: Children Acting the ‘Play Scene’ from “Hamlet,” Act II, Scene ii, by Charles Hunt. (1863). In public domain, source Wikimedia Commons.

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The Little Theatre in the United States

CHAPTER I

The Rise of the Little Theatre I

The newest and most vital note in the art of the United States today is struck by that arch-foe of commercialism the Little Theatre. The very name Little Theatre is salted with significance. It at once calls to mind an intimate stage and auditorium where players and audience can be brought into close accord: a theatre where unusual non-commercial plays are given; a theatre where the repertory and subscription system prevails; where scenic experimentation is rife; where “How Much Can We Make?” is not the dominating factor.

Little Theatres are established from love of drama, not from love of gain. Their workers are all drawn together by the same impulse they are artists, or potential artists in the craft of acting, of playwrighting, of stage decoration or stage management. These are the definite traits of Little Theatres the world over.

Little Theatres may differ as to size their seating capacity may be seventy or three hundred. But they do not differ in their main characteristics. One and all they are exponents of the repertory system; and last, and most important, they are always centers of experimentation. For experimentation is the Little Theatre’s raison d’etre.

The Little Theatre movement is often spoken of as a new movement; and it is new as far as America is concerned; for its rise in this country began in 1911-1912. The initial idea of the Little Theatre came to us from Europe. Its inception goes back to 1887 when the first small experimental theatre was established in Paris by Andre Antoine at 37 Elysee des Beaux Arts. 1 Jules Lemaitre’s description of that blustery October evening has since become famous: “We (the critics) had the air of good Magi in mackintoshes seeking out some lowly but glorious manger. Can it be that in this manger the decrepit and doting drama is destined to be born again!” Lemaitre’s words were prophetic. Had he been, in his feuilleton, even more prophetic, he might have pointed out that Andre Antoine by establishing the first genuine Little Theatre the world had ever seen was to influence the art of

the stage more profoundly than any man of his generation.

The term “lowly but glorious” might have been used to describe Antoine himself: a man of the people, beginning his career as a clerk; a man imbued with a passionate yet clearsighted love of the stage; a man filled with an enthusiasm for the art of the theatre so great that he was able to enkindle all those with whom he came in contact, whether clerks and artisans who wanted to act, or men of great gifts who wanted to write (or were writing), plays men such as Eugene Brieux, Camille Fabre, Pierre Wolf, and George Ancey. All this Lemaitre might have seen, had he possessed the crystal of futurity. And more. He might have glimpsed that this young man, beginning as a humble clerk, was to wear in later years the coveted Legion of Honor for his services to the French theatre.

Be that as it may, when Lemaitre and Faguet, with some of their brother critics “stumbled down the dark passage of No. 37” they felt that it was an “occasion.” And they were not wrong. Antoine’s “Free Theatre” was destined to be as great as it was little! It established once and for all the idea of intimacy between players and audience; it thrust under foot the idea of profit-seeking as the sole aim of the theatrical manager; for Antoine regarded the theatre as Max Reinhardt does today, as a “house of vision.” Antoine sought simplicity of effect rather than ornateness. His theatre was a dramatic laboratory in the true sense of the word.

Artistic experimentation was the soul of Antoine’s theatre. From the first it eschewed commercialism. It was never run for profit. Its audience was a subscription audience, exactly as are the Little Theatre audiences of today. The plays Antoine produced were “criticisms of life” as against the well-made play of the Scribe or Sardou school. They were as new and strange to the audiences of those days as are the plays of Andreyeff to the audiences of the present. They were naturalistic plays, given in a naturalistic manner. That in itself marked a hew epoch in stage development. The whole naturalistic art of the theatre as we know it today dates back to the experimentation of Andre Antoine. He produced the then revolutionary plays of Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy, and Brieux. He had an unbounded appetite for the absolutely new, the vital, the libertarian. He shut the door in the face of tradition and gave false romanticism its deathblow. By his daring, his restless searching, his fearless producing, he made possible the Little Theatre as we know it today.

A critic has recently said: “The Little Theatre is the one thing that has happened in the history of the stage in the last thirty-five years.” Indeed the whole “new art” of the modern stage, lighting, color, stylization, synchronization, has been made possible through the Little Theatre. Without the

impetus of the Little Theatre there probably would have been no Gordon Craig, no Stanislavski, no Reinhardt. Andreyeff, Strindberg, Synge, Yeats, Lady Gregory, the Irish Dramatists, the “Manchester school,” all these and their quickening influence might not have taken the place they hold today were it not that the Little Theatre made straight the way for them. That is to say, without the Little Theatre, the finest one-act plays of Europe might never have been written, since for years there was no place for “the short story of the drama” save in the large theatres where it was relegated to the part of a mere curtain raiser, or in the vaudeville theatres where it was forced to have either farcical or melodramatic qualities if it was to hold its own. The Little Theatre gave the literary one-act play, the play of characterization and style arid nuance a chance to live.

It has been claimed that the Little Theatre does not foster great acting. But this, even in the time of Antoine, it never pretended to do. In its small compass there is no space for the vast, the heroic, the impassioned, the “mountain of flame blown skyward” that great acting is, and always has been. But when was great acting ever fostered or taught? The gods appear, or they do not appear. Bernhardt, Duse, Coquelin, Irving, and Mansfield, were not created by any special theatre or set of theatres. A fine ensemble that shall worthily and truthfully express the idea which the author wishes to have expressed this is the acting-ideal of the Little Theatre. And when the great actors of the future appear they will find that through the influence of the Little Theatre there is a more appreciative audience waiting to receive them, and an inscenation worthy of their gifts. Meanwhile the Little Theatre upholds the ideal of devotion to art which the stage is in danger of losing, and pits its strength against the great gilded juggernaut of What the Public Wants. The large theatre is many centuries old; the Little Theatre is very new and young. Who can tell what may or may not be accomplished by it?

The next theatre to Antoine’s Free Theatre in point of time was Lugne Poe’s Theatre de L’Oeuvre, which as its title suggests was a Theatre of Work the first workshop theatre, an antecedent of the growing list of workshop theatres that are in our midst today. “Naturalness and reality” were the watchwords of this theatre.

The Little Theatre movement then spread to Russia where Constantine Stanislavski founded the Moscow Art Theatre in 1890. Its company was recruited from amateurs who had a reverence for and a willingness to serve the theatre. Unparalleled hard work was demanded of them. As they progressed, small salaries were paid them. When the finances of the theatre reached a more solid basis, the salaries were increased. But the work was

not diminished. “All or nothing” is the motto of the Moscow Art Theatre. So strong was the public response to their sincerity that from a povertystricken beginning they progressed financially until two decades later they were making upwards of $50,000 a year. The change from poverty to affluence did not in the least affect their working policy. It simply made it possible for Stanislavski to give more and more beautiful productions. The most noted of his productions were Tchekoff’s Sea Gull, Gorky’s Lower Depths, Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet with screens devised by Gordon Craig plain cream colored screens flooded with lights of varying color and intensity. In 1896 this company toured Europe.

All growth includes change. Thus it will be seen that the Little Theatre idea as it expanded gained greater catholicity. On the one hand it developed naturalism and on the other hand symbolism a spiritual romanticism touched with mystery and beauty such as is found in the plays of Maeterlinck and Synge.

During these years Wyspianski, the great Polish painter and poet, had established his own theatre at Cracow, where he designed and painted his own scenery. This was in the main symbolic scenery, and by means of original and extraordinary lighting he also created an “illusion” stage. So fine were some of his effects that several well-known English critics credit Wyspianski with greatly influencing the Moscow Art Theatre. Wyspianski aimed to make his theatre “the theatre of the Polish conscience.” It was a Little Theatre with nationalistic inclinations. It produced plays by Polish authors. It strove to be to the Polish drama what Chopin is to Polish music, inspirator and interpreter.

How far Wyspianski’s Art Theatre influenced the next theatre to be established in Russia, the Art Theatre of Madame Vyera Kommisarzhevsky, the Russian actress (Petrograd, 1904), cannot be determined. But this Petrograd theatre devoted itself to symbolism and symbolic plays, experimenting with these; making no attempt to experiment with the theories of naturalism.

The Convex Mirror Theatre of Petrograd was established in 1911. This Little Theatre produces Russian plays that have political as well as literary significance, such as Andreyeff’s Sabine Women, and places less stress on stage decoration than does the Moscow Art Theatre.

In 1891 England’s first Little Theatre, the Independent Theatre, was started in London by J. T. Grein. It made no scenic innovations; but it produced plays both one-act and longer ones by English and foreign authors. It had a subscription system and from this derived a small income barely two thousand dollars a year. It lasted six years, and was the precursor

of much that was dramatically valuable.

Then came the Stage Society (1897) whose actions are discussed in the brilliant prefaces of George Bernard Shaw. This Society had in it the “makings” of a Little Theatre. But its performances were sporadic, largely owing to the fact that it had no permanent theatre of its own. Nothing can kill a Little Theatre idea more quickly than lack of a permanent home. Neither had the Stage Society a permanent band of players. No scenic experimentation was made by the Society. Stylization was unthought of. Its emphasis was placed solely on repertory.

The next movement which might have resulted in a Little Theatre was the organization of the Irish Players. But with the establishing of this group one fact of very great significance became apparent, namely, that while in itself the Irish movement probably would not have come to fruition if Antoine’s Theatre had not prepared the way for it, when it came it was not strictly a Little Theatre movement; it was a National Theatre movement. The Abbey Theatre gave the plays of its own nation, not of other nations. It was not experimental. It sought no new effects unless simplicity be called a new effect. It is a repertory group rather than a Little Theatre group in this respect. Nationalism not Little Theatreism is the note of the Irish Players.

Thereafter, between the years 1904 and 1913 group after group of players with Little Theatre attributes were established in the British Isles. The Manchester Players, founded and directed by Miss Horniman, have the catholicity that is the hall mark of the Little Theatre. They produce both classic and modern plays. Their plays by local authors, mirroring with bitter fidelity life in and about Manchester and other manufacturing cities, has earned for these playwrights the title of “The Manchester school” a group as distinctly localistic as the Irish Players are nationalistic. Beyond this, Miss Horniman’s players do not indulge in experiment. There is no attempt at the new inscenation. The theatre is not intimate. There is no subscription system. It is in fact “a permanent stock company of picked front-rank actors.”

The Welsh National Theatre is, by its very name, confessedly not a Little Theatre, but of its open-mindedness there can be no doubt, since its prize for the best one-act play dealing with Welsh life was won by an American woman, Miss Jeanette Marks. The Glasgow Literary Theatre, too, is national. It exists primarily for the production of plays of national character written by Scotch men and women.

Basil Dean’s Literary Theatre in Liverpool was the first of these group theatres to lean toward reform in lighting and scenery and new problems in

interpretation. Very probably his theatre would have become a true Little Theatre in the exact sense of the word as would the proposed Little Theatres of Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol, had not the Great War cut short their plans.

Thomas Hardy’s Wessex Players and M’Evoy’s Devonshire Players might have formed the Little Rural Theatre groups of England were it not for the fact that they only gave sporadic performances. Had the performances been consecutive there was the making of a wonderful folk theatre in these groups. The more the pity that the performances did not continue.

The desire for Little Theatres is everywhere manifest in England yet in only two instances has this desire touched actuality. The Afternoon Theatre in London was of brief duration. Thus the one real Little Theatre of the British Isles having intimacy, experimentation, and variety in choice of plays with a fine ensemble to act them is Gertrude Kingston’s Little Theatre in London, where that admirable actress-manager has striven to give the British public the best work of their own authors and of foreign authors. The Great War has affected this theatre as it has all British theatres, and Miss Kingston and her company have spent part of their season in the United States.

Meanwhile, in Germany, where there had for generations been small court theatres but no real Little Theatre, there rose the star of Max Reinhardt. This great producer began his stage craftsmanship with a Little Theatre. Reinhardt and his intimates used to meet in a Berlin restaurant, where, for their own delectation, they gave one-act plays.

The idea of intimacy on the part of players and audience took such hold on Reinhardt that he and his group the Schall und Rauch group they called themselves moved into a theatre-hall, the Künstlerhaus. The next step was to “inurn this name, and the Kleine’s Theatre sprang from its ashes.” This theatre had a draped interior the draperies held in place by Bocklin masks. The ushers were in odd black-and-white costumes.

In this Little Theatre were produced one-act plays by Strindberg, Wilde, Wedekind, and Von Hofmansthal. In 1905 Reinhardt was called to the directorship of the Deutsches Theatre, a theatre of the large nonintimate type. But Reinhardt’s interest in the intimate theatre still continued. Next door to the Deutsches Theatre was a dance hall. This Reinhardt promptly remodeled into a theatre seating three hundred people. He called it the Kammerspielhaus. Its name denotes its purpose. The large theatre was comparable to a large orchestra: this small theatre was comparable to chamber music, as its title indicates. Both one-act plays and longer plays were produced in the Kammerspielhaus.

Experimentation is the dominant note of the Kammerspielhaus. The naturalistic drama was represented by such playwrights as Ibsen, Shaw, and Wolf, and the one-act plays of Strindberg and Schnitzler; while the poetic drama was represented by Maeterlinck, Goethe, Von Hofmansthal, and Eduard Stucken. The settings for these plays were austerely lovely. But for love of experimentation Reinhardt added a third type of drama the decorative drama, embodied in such plays as Salome and Sumurun. To these Reinhardt gave exotically gorgeous settings. In Sumurun he showed how costume effects could be marvelously heightened by the use of scenery without perspective. For, with all his allegiance to the moderns, Max Reinhardt is first and foremost a superb colorist, decorative rather than analytical. He is at heart a romanticist, not a realist. The Little Theatre might have become narrow had it devoted itself solely to the production of realistic plays. But men like Reinhardt and Stanislavski pointed the way toward new accomplishments in creating the decorative drama that exists for beauty’s sake, that makes no pretense at reality, that is imaginative and not photographic, that belongs to the world of vision and dream. The decorative drama has nothing whatever to do with the false romanticism which existed previous to the founding of the Theatre Antoine. It is new, free, and splendidly colorful. It widens the experimental scope of the Little Theatre.

The Art Theatre established in Munich under the direction of George Fuchs showed the direct influence of Little Theatreism, although it cannot be called a Little Theatre. It is a small theatre with a small stage. It stresses the value of intimacy between players and audience. Its settings are of the simplest, flat perspectiveless backgrounds in the manner of Reinhardt; yet lacking Reinhardt’s color. Neutral tones and ascetic lines mark the stylization of the Munich Art Theatre. It does not experiment with scenic innovations. Nor is it entirely devoted to drama. Like many of the court theatres of Germany, it alternates plays and operas. Architecturally it is one of the most beautiful of the Littmann theatres; but as a creative force it is inferior to the Kammerspielhaus of Max Reinhardt.

In 1907 came another salient Little Theatre. August Strindberg, whose plays had been produced by Andre Antoine, was more and more impressed as time went on with the possibilities of the intimate stage. In 1888-1889 he attempted to establish a Scandinavian Experimental Theatre at Holte near Copenhagen for the production of his own plays. This project was abandoned after Strindberg’s Pariah and Creditors had been given, and it was not until 1907 that his plans in this direction came to fruition. In that year, with the help of August Falk, he established the Intimate Theatre at Stockholm, Sweden. He believed as did Antoine in reducing the stage

setting to “interchangeable backgrounds and few stage properties.”

Scenic simplification was one of the ideas for which he strove. Repertory and experimentation were part and parcel of this theatre which produced only the plays of Strindberg, and for which he wrote five dramas “marked by the same blend of mysticism and realism that form such a striking feature of The Dream Play.” This Intimate Theatre seated two hundred people. Its company was a resident one.

Meanwhile other Little Theatres were springing up in the capitals of Europe. Brussels and Budapest had their intimate playhouses. Paris had its Grande Guinol, a type of theatre which produced one-act plays whose leit motif was “horror.” It was a theatre where “shocks” were guaranteed, where the grizzliest tales of Edgar Allan Poe found their dramatic counterpart. In Paris Jacques Rouche established his Theatre des Arts; and the Parisian Theatre du Vieux Colombier, the last Little Theatre to be established in Europe before the Great War, was also one of the most significant. Its originator and director, Jacques Copeau, says of it: “It is established because I, myself, and those who work with me are enemies of the commercial theatre as it exists today.” Henri Pierre Roche says of Jacques Copeau: “He is to the modern theatre of France what Antoine was to Paris twenty-five years ago its soul.” Through this Little Theatre the intellectuals of Paris hope to see the rehabilitation of theatre ideals. In their earnestness and simplicity Copeau’s group of players strikingly suggests the Irish Players. But Copeau produces the plays of all nations, not the plays of one nation. His is a Little Theatre, not a National Theatre.

Speaking of this Little Theatre Copeau has recently said: “We have a small theatre with only five hundred seats, which allows our enterprise to live inexpensively and to be by far the cheapest theatre in Paris.

“Our troupe is engaged and paid by the year. Note that all the ladies’ costumes are furnished by ourselves. Our public, especially at the beginning, was the cultivated few the students, writers, artists, and the foreigners who live around the Latin Quarter.

“We do not know what the Theatre of Tomorrow will be like; we are simply the enemies of the commercial theatre as it exists today.”

Monsieur Copeau is now in America, and will revive his Theatre du Vieux Colombier in New York next season.

II

The Little Theatre movement reached the United States in 1911-1912. In that year three Little Theatres were established: The Little Theatre of Maurice Brown in Chicago; Mrs. Lyman Gale’s Toy Theatre in Boston, and

Winthrop Ames’ Little Theatre in New York the last a Little Theatre in its architecture rather than in its policy. Since the establishing of these Little Theatres the growth of the Little Theatre movement has been so rapid and spontaneous that at present, in the matter of Little Theatres, numerically speaking, our country leads the world. Over fifty Little Theatres have sprung up throughout the United States. It cannot be claimed for them artistically (save in one or two instances) that they equal the Little Theatres of Europe. Not yet. But it can be claimed for them and justly that they have greater differentiation than the Little Theatres of Europe ever dreamed of having. Herein lies their enormous value. Every Little Theatre now extant in the United States has met and conquered problems as widely different as can be imagined. They are racially expressive of America in that they show an indomitable pioneer spirit.

For the problems they have conquered are not only those of art, policy, and finance such as every Little Theatre in Europe has had to face; but also those of varying localities, of varying needs and conditions. Europe has centuries of culture behind her: and her Little Theatres have found their audiences ready and waiting. In the United States the Little Theatre in many cases has to create itself and its audience at the same time. In each of the European countries Little Theatres have centered the intellectual life of such larger cities as Moscow, London, Berlin, and Paris. In the United States, cities and suburbs, seashore villages, prairie towns and mountain farm-lands have their Little Theatres.

America has had to expand the idea of a Little Theatre in order to meet the thousand different needs of the country at large. This has led to the creation of new types of Little Theatres types which Europe has never seen. Europe has no collapsible Little Theatre that can be packed up and moved in less than six hours; no college laboratory theatre; no Little Theatre for farmers such as one of our Western States can boast. Neither has Europe a beautifully equipped Little Theatre set in the very heart of a city slum, showing the socializing force of the Little Theatre as a community asset. Nor from Petrograd to Paris is there a cultural Little Theatre where admittance is absolutely free. Yet all these types of Little Theatres exist in America.

It is true that many of the Little Theatres in Europe began in hired halls. But even Andre Antoine might gaze with astonishment at the ingenuity with which Little Theatre directors in this country have grappled with the problem of no-hall-to-be-had. The stable, the chapel, the art museum, the masonic temple, the private dwelling house, the store, and even the saloon, have been made into charmingly decorative Little Theatres in this country.

While an abandoned fish house in a picturesque Massachusetts town has been so metamorphosed that Stanislavski himself would applaud it!

There is, too, wide dissimilarity in the policy of the Little Theatres of the United States. Some specialize in producing plays by American authors only; others specialize in producing plays by European authors only. Still others confine themselves to local authors, or to “first productions.” Certain theatres are addicted to the one-act play, and no other appears on their boards. Again it may be that a Little Theatre will alternate short three or four-act plays with one-act plays. And in some Little Theatres classic revivals are added to the list, though in the main the one-act play forms the chief staple of production. The reason for this is obvious.

Since the players and directors working in Little Theatres are artists or potential artists they will produce only such plays as have a distinct value. And where can such plays be found plays that will fill the needs of the Little Theatre? Little Theatres have only a small amount to spend on production and a still smaller amount to spend on royalties. They must turn to plays that have been written con amore, with no commercial end in view, plays that require a small royalty or none. Almost the only plays in this category are the one-act and occasional two-act plays written by European and American dramatists who have something to say and want to say it regardless of money. What form of play could be better suited to an intimate stage? The one-act play affords excellent examples of comparative drama. Facets from the stage literature of Russia, Spain, Denmark, and Iceland can be given in an evening. Or an idea of love as it was yesterday, is today and will be tomorrow, can be set before an appreciative audience. The thought of the world changes every ten years and the Little Theatre can easily show forth this change.

For first and last the Little Theatre is a theatre of imagination, of thought. Before the advent of the Little Theatre in this country poetic drama went starving; fantasy shivered in the biting wind of neglect. Now poetry, fantasy, grim realism, star-dust pantomime, and tingling satire find place in the Little Theatres. Brief social preachments have their say. Historical personages live, move, and have their being; for the Little Theatre is nothing if not inclusive. The historic play, the problem play, and the play with or without a purpose can all find space on its boards.

The one-act play makes a special appeal to Little Theatre players because, being short, it requires less sustained characterization than a long play.

There is another reason why the one-act play has become a necessary concomitant of the Little Theatre. Since the Little Theatre houses a

democracy of artists each artist must be given an opportunity to reach his public. The more varied the programs of the Little Theatre, the greater the opportunities for its staff. An evening of one-act plays gives the players a chance to appear in several parts; gives the costume and scenic artist a chance to try out several designs. No commercial theatre produces programs composed of one-act plays. Therefore the Little Theatre has the field to itself in this respect. To the production of these plays the workers in Little Theatres bring sincerity and in many cases a keen sense of dramatic values. From the first Little Theatre companies in the United States have realized that wonder and beauty of effect can be obtained through inexpensive as well as expensive means. They employ simplicity and suggestion true corner stones of the significant in art.

As to the content of the plays, the Little Theatres of the United States produce many of the same plays that are given in the intimate theatres of Europe. That is, they give plays by European dramatists, and also plays by American authors. They provide our native playwright with a place where he can come into his own. As yet America has no Dunsany, no Maeterlinck, no Synge. But her Little Theatres give incipient Dunsanys and Maeterlincks a chance to experiment, to get a hearing, a thing they have never had before. Some compellingly interesting one-act plays by native authors have been the result, plays showing different facets of American life, interpreted both in terms of comedy and tragedy.

In scenic investiture several of the Little Theatres of the United States are rapidly approaching the European standard, notably the Washington Square Players. At devising remarkable effects for very little outlay the Little Theatres in the United States surpass their European contemporaries. The much famed scenic use of potato sacking by the Irish Players fades almost into insignificance compared with what some little American Theatres have accomplished for $3.98!

Histrionically the Little Theatres of the United States do not equal the Little Theatres of Europe. Many of their players are at the stage where the Moscow Art Theatre players were before they perfected their art. All the players in the Little Theatres of Europe have become professional. Players in the Little Theatres of the United States are of two kinds professional and semi-professional. If professional, the players receive a living wage; if amateur, no wage at all. They give their services. They are what one critic has termed “amateurs on the way toward being professionals.” In either case the company is a resident one. It does not travel about except perhaps for a brief stated period. Its theatre is its home, and there it stays. It is not haphazard, it is steadfast.

One of the finest things accomplished by Little Theatres in this country is the fact that they bring new quickening art forces to the smaller towns that would otherwise never see the changes that are being wrought in stage decoration as well as in the content of modern plays. Intellectual and decorative drama, fresh outlook, and keen stimulus are thus put within the reach of those who hunger for them. It is one thing to read Shaw, and another to get the impact of his dialogue as the play is acted on the stage. It is one thing to hear of simplicity of line, of the beauty obtainable through sheer color, and another thing to see line and color .work their miracle.

Above all, Little Theatreism must not be confused with private theatricals. Private theatricals are exactly what that name implies private and theatrical. They are given by a coterie of amateurs before another coterie of amateurs purely for the sake of the amusement derived. There is nothing of the potential artist in the labors of these amateurs. They are not working toward a goal: nothing that they do is intentioned. In the matter of plays they are content to repeat: never to create. And last but not least, they are not judged by theatre standards. Private theatricals invite leniency. The Little Theatre invites criticism. The former is social; the latter artistic. In fact the spirit of Little Theatreism is as far removed from private theatricals as is painting on china from a Pennell etching.

Little Theatres are not imposed on the community. They are the natural outgrowth of its art-life free, spontaneous, resilient. They are free in spirit, in outlook, in pecuniary standard free as no commercial theatre ever can be free. They are the heralds of the theatre of tomorrow; a disturbing factor in the theatre of today.

David Belasco has lately said: “Little Theatres are a menace. They cannot last.” A critic promptly replied: “If they can’t last, then why are they a menace?” The old order changeth and the Little Theatre is responsible for the change. It has put art into the hands of the people instead of into the hands of the box office, and art that is of the people, that is native and authentic, is a force to be reckoned with in all ages and all climes.

The very littleness of the Little Theatre is its safeguard. There is no vast expense for rent, salaries, scenery, costumes, heat, light, printing and advertising, such as the commercial theatre has to face. The Little Theatre is not forced to please a large majority, does not consider what the public wants. It can advance towards the goal it has set for itself unhampered by the difficulties that beset the commercial playhouse. Indeed, all difficulties are promptly overridden. Perhaps because the movement in this country is young it has the daring, the ardor, the eager up-struggle of youth. It is the theatre of the Future. It has no musty traditions to fall back on, no hide-

bound theories. It hoes its own row. With its audience it creates and fulfils a demand for the best.

A noted critic has recently observed that he could tell whether the art life of a city was an affectation or a reality by inquiring whether it supported a Little Theatre. It was like feeling the art pulse of the community. If a Little Theatre existed then that community was a thriving place, creatively, in all the finer things of culture. If a Little Theatre did not exist then that place was artistically moribund. Like all wit his rapier thrust had a flash of truth, for a Little Theatre is made possible by spirit rather than by money.

North, South, East, West, this country has responded to the Little Theatre movement. New York, the largest city in the country, naturally has the greatest number of Little Theatres, and movements instigated by Little Theatres. Winthrop Ames’ Little Theatre has already been mentioned. There are also the Washington Square Players, the Provincetown Players, the Neighborhood Playhouse, the Portmanteau Theatre, the Greenwich Village Theatre, the East-West-Players, the Bramhall Playhouse, and in process the Workshop Theatre. Groups of New York players directly influenced by the Little Theatre idea include the Morningside Players and the Negro Players. Brooklyn has a Community Repertory Theatre directly traceable to Little Theatre influence. Richmond Hill, L. I., and Montclair and Newark, N. J., have each a group of Community Players. There is a Workshop Theatre at Yonkers, N. Y. Rochester, N. Y., has a Little Theatre and also a group called The Prince Street Players. Bridgeport has a Little Theatre; Buffalo has the Drama League Players and their Little Theatre. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Northampton, Mass., and Plainfield, N. H., have Little Theatres. So have Erie and Brookfield, Penn. New Orleans and Louisville are establishing Little Theatres. There is a recently started Little Theatre in Washington, D. C. Chicago has three Little Theatres; Duluth, St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Galesburg, and Lake Forest, Ill., have Little Theatres. So also have Fargo and Kensal, N. D. Laboratory Theatres have been established at Harvard, Carnegie Institute, and Dartmouth. Wisconsin is justly proud of its Wisconsin Players. Movements toward establishing Little Theatres are afoot in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Portland, Ore.

To describe these Little Theatres, their contributions and achievements, is the purpose of this book.

Appendix I

The Little Theatre in Medieval Times

While Antoine’s Theatre was the first intimate indoor theatre in the true sense of the word, there had already been many intimate outdoor theatres before his time. It is interesting to note that just as the first large theatre was an outdoor theatre, as embodied in the theatre of the Greeks, and later became an indoor theatre, so also the intimate theatre had its beginning out of doors. The idea of the first large theatre came from the Occident; but the idea of a limited audience came from the Orient.

Six or seven hundred years before the Theatre Antoine existed the plays of the No were given in Japan before an audience which was never allowed to exceed twenty persons, and seldom numbered more than fifteen. These plays were usually given in the garden of some private estate. They had the smallest permanent audience on record purposely kept small, because the plays of the No were a drama of aristocracy. Later a popular theatre developed in Japan; yet until the middle of the nineteenth century the Daimios or grandees were not allowed to attend the common theatre. Therefore the plays of the No were the only plays they could see. These plays were usually of a legendary or religious character, “for the appreciation of the elect, of nobles with minds trained to catch the subtle illusion on which the plays were based.” They were the intellectual dramas of Japan.

Thus in the Orient the limited audience, the small theatre was aristocratic in the extreme, while in the Occident the small theatre is essentially the theatre of democracy. In the Orient the Little Theatre, through its dramas, kept alive the old and traditional ideas; in the Occident the Little Theatre stands and has stood for all that is newest in ideas and art.

The garden theatres of mediaeval Italian noblemen were also of the intimate type: the eighteenth century indoor court theatres of Germany were often small in circumference; but it was not until the opening of the Theatre Antoine that the genuine Little Theatre came definitely into view.

How to Produce Children’s Plays

CHAPTER 1

The Development of Child-Drama I

To anyone not familiar with the astonishingly rapid growth of the childdrama movement in this country the slogan of “Every Public School a Community Theater” will come as a distinct surprise: yet it is not long since President Emeritus Charles Eliot of Harvard, in speaking of the dramatic instinct, prophetically said: “Here is this tremendous power over children…that ought to be utilized for their good. It is true that the dramatic instinct is very general…. So I say that this power…is one that ought to be in at least every school in this country, and, moreover, I believe that it is going to be.”

On every side it is evident that this prophecy is being fulfilled. The demand for children’s plays was never so great as it is to-day, and coincident with the demand is a wish for a fuller knowledge of how to direct them, since there are few guide-posts on the way. Therefore, the object of this book is to tell in the simplest possible manner what to do, and what not to do in the producing of plays for children. The word children is used to indicate the happy occupants of the years between six and fourteen, and by producing, the general stage-directing, costuming, and setting of a children’s play, so that it will have distinct educational and artistic value. It is for the school-child, not the stage-child, that this book is intended: for the teacher and drama enthusiast rather than the professional producer. It will consider both child-audience and child-player, and the results on both of a logical development of the dramatic instinct. It will discuss plays to fill the special needs of the public school, the social settlement, and the camp. It will also briefly consider the stage-play (i.e., professional play) for childaudiences. And as the whole movement of child-drama is significant from an educational and sociological, as well as a dramatic point of view, a brief history of its vicissitudes will be included in the present chapter from the days when little Greeks participated in the festivals to Athena, through the time when the Countess de Genlis established in France, in 1776, the first Theater of Education for Children that the world had ever known. From that time to our own is less than a hundred and fifty years, yet what a change

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

has taken place! Instead of a single example of a children’s theater as was that of Mme. de Genlis, we now have child-plays and child-players throughout the country in public schools, social centers, and social settlements, fostered by educational and dramatic leagues, recognized as a power potent for good, and if rightly directed, a means of teaching patriotism, ethics, and art. Strange as it may seem, a children’s play written for the special delight of child-audiences was undreamed of till the eighteenth century preached the rights of the child as well as the rights of man. Like many another modern movement, child-drama seems new, when in reality it is not. It has come gropingly up through the ages. The need of it was dimly felt centuries before it appeared, just as the need for children’s literature and music was felt: but in the filling of these needs child-drama came last. Its development has been tidal, rising here, falling there, seeming to retreat utterly, only to come on in greater strength and fullness.

From the earliest times children have participated in non-professional adult drama, though it was not till the establishment of the theater of Mme. de Genlis that they had a drama all their own, designed to fit their special needs. In the religious and community festivals of ancient Greece, whiterobed and flower-crowned children played a pictorial part. In the great historical dramas of Greece, notably in the Medea of Euripides, there were child parts; but these were played by masked adults of small stature. Children of shepherds and farmers appeared in the ritual before Pomona’s altar; boys of noble birth, crowned with vine leaves, were cup-bearers to the chorus of nobles in the Thargelian festivals. Little Britons took part in and witnessed some of the Druidic festivals. From the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries in the English miracle and morality plays fostered by church, community, and guild, children played many roles. In the fifteenth century in England short plays were introduced into the public schools for boys. But these dramas were arranged to be played before adult audiences: childplayer and child-audience were never considered.

Herein lies the difference between the ancient and modern play movement in the schools. Nowadays the benefit to be derived by child-player and child-audience is the first consideration: in the fifteenth century the pleasure of the adult audience was the foremost thought. Whether the childplayer benefited by the play, or even understood what it was about, was of no consequence. All that was asked of him was to learn his lines, parrotwise, and be prompt with his cues.

Richard the Third was a patron of the drama: his royal example led to a love of acting by gentleman amateurs. “To the same example,” says Dr. Doran, in his Annals of the Stage, “may be traced the custom of having

dramatic performances in the public schools, the pupils being the performers. These boys, or in their place the children of the Chapel Royal, were frequently summoned to play in the presence of the King and Court.” Boys gave a “command performance” of a play in Latin before Henry the Eighth and his attendants; and in 1584 the children of the Chapel Royal presented The Arraignment of Paris, by George Peele, before Queen Elizabeth. Though there were extant no plays especially written for children, the miracle and morality plays were so naive, so direct and simple in their appeal, that they were the nearest approach to child-drama of any of their predecessors. Written primarily for adults, they told their story with definitely labeled characters that could be understood by all. Anger, Meddlesome, and Make-peace could be readily recognized by children. Noah’s wife, who is quarrelsome and refuses to go into the ark; the bluff humor of the shepherd who steals a sheep, hides it in a cradle, and pretends it is a baby when its owner comes to look for it no doubt many a rosy-cheeked youngster in doublet-and-hose laughed gleefully at such antics. Yet there were other characters it might be as well he did not see grim skeletons representing death, black dream-haunting devils and carnal vices creatures that had no part in his child-world. But, as has been said, in those days there was no drama for children, and whatever child happened to be in the audience must perforce take bitter with the sweet.

The Miracle play was the Sunday school of its time, and Bible history was learned through actual representation. The pageant, passing through the English towns on painted floats, drew crowds of children to witness its open-air performances. Bands of strolling players had child-auditors by the score. (See the first act of Josephine Peabody’s The Piper and Bennet’s Young Master Skylark.) Of these plays the children appropriated what they could and left the rest. In the processional and decorative portions of the masque as it flourished in France and England, children also appeared, though there was often little in that form of dramatic entertainment that they could understand. In “far Japan” the plays of the No were flourishing, with occasional child-parts; in Italy were the guild plays, with roles for little apprentices; everywhere appreciation of the heart of childhood, and nowhere any direct appeal to it. Children must take their drama at haphazard.

With the opening of the London theaters which gave the English drama a local habitation and a name, the decline of community drama 1 began. For a short time they flourished side by side; then professional drama gained the ascendency. Not that there was ever any real rivalry between them. It was

simply that drama was becoming more and more strictly an art of the theater, to be encompassed within four walls. Striplings were acting the parts of fine ladies or children. The day of the child-actor had begun, and with it the day of the child-player 2 ceased. It is a noticeable phenomena that the age which sees the greatest number of children acting professionally sees also the diminishing of community acting or spontaneous expression of the dramatic instinct among children. To the present writer it seems as if the exploitation of childhood and the commercialization of its tender talents was a subtle weed which choked the flower of uncommercial talent. They cannot flourish in the same soil. The development of the dramatic instinct in the schoolroom with proper hours and surroundings is one thing; childactors traveling from place to place in an atmosphere of over-excitement and fatigue is another. 3

The attendance of children at the indoor theaters of Shakespeare’s day was very small. The audience was mainly composed of grown-ups. Not a thousandth part of the children then knew Midsummer Night’s Dream as they know it to-day. Yet the fairy portions of it sound as if they had been written for children:

“And I serve the fairy queen

To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be: In their gold coats spots you see; These be rubies, fairy favors, In those freckles live their savors: I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”

Here was an elfin fantasy for children and no child-audience to greet it!

With community drama diminishing, two sources of participation for children remained: May Day, and its May Queen and Morris Dancers, its bells and garlands; Christmas Day, and its antique revels. While these festivals lasted children could count on being audience and participators too,

2 Child-player is used to denote one who plays for pleasure; child-actor, one who plays for profit.

3 It is only fair to state that this is the author’s opinion, and that others differ from it. Such well-known professionals as Mr. Augustus Thomas and Mr. Francis Wilson believe in children acting professionally, while Miss Jane Addams and Mr. Owen Lovejoy, Secretary of the National Child Labor Committee, hold to the opposite.

though these were festivals rather than plays.

Came Cromwell and the closing of the theaters, the cessation of May Day mumming: then the gay, dissolute days of the Restoration, when no theater contained a play that was fit for children to witness. Community drama, that is, drama in which the people themselves took part as in the old miracles and moralities, had utterly vanished, not to return until our own day.

The annals of eighteenth-century England contain almost no records of amateur acting by children, though a performance of Cato (!) by the children of the royal household has been duly chronicled. Prince George, afterwards George the Third, spoke the prologue; the epilogue was spoken by little Lady Augusta (as Prince Frederick called his daughter) and Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of York. Whatever school-plays were given were of this same order, pompous, grandiloquent, without a spark of the fantasy childhood craved. Yet for the child-audience better times were in store. However meager child-drama in eighteenth-century England, however unimaginative the time, it did give one perennial figure to the stage that was to open the door to child-audiences i.e., Pantaloon: a figure imported by Rich from the Commedia del Arte of Italy for the express purpose of amusing grown-ups. This Pantaloon did, in company with Harlequin, Columbine, and Punchinello, for many years. Then by degrees he came into his own true kingdom as the leading figure in the Christmas pantomimes which from about 1809 became the heritage of English children, and have remained so to the present day. Pantaloon was the father of the circus clown as we know him; just as Punchinello was the ancestor of Punch, chief actor in the puppet show of Punch and Judy, which our ancestors accepted without a qualm as being suitable for child-audiences. Nowadays the horror and cruelty of Punch are no longer considered amusing. He is banished. And with him much that is brutal and ugly.

In the other European countries the participation of child-audience and child-player fluctuated as it did in England. Little apprentices took part in the Guild Plays of the Italian cities: Holland, Germany, and France had their periods of community drama corresponding to that of the miracle and morality plays: there were folk and church festivals in which children participated. These grew fewer as the stage-plays grew more numerous. The continent abounded in puppet-shows long before England had them, but the stories they acted were not for children’s eyes or ears.

In the convents and schools of France children played in “moral comedies”: that were as stiff as Cato, and like Cato, primarily intended for older pupils. Then in the days of Marie Antoinette and the “intellectual ferment”

came the most dynamic change that child-drama had ever known. The long urge for plays designed to fit the needs of children at last found an answer.

We who live in the twentieth century, who see all about us children’s reading-rooms, children’s courts, and children’s hospitals; who are accustomed to books, pictures, and music designed especially for children, can hardly realize that there was a time when these things did not exist. But when the educational doctrines of Rousseau startled Europe people were shaken from a lethargy, made to think, to regard the child individually instead of collectively, to realize that childhood had claims of its own.

Among those who profited by Rousseau’s theories was the Countess de Genlis, herself a born teacher, a pioneer blazing new trails. She studied the intellectual and spiritual needs of children, and in her searching presently realized that no plays had been written with a child-audience in view, that there was not a single drama, with the exception of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (then seldom given), that could give delight to childaudiences. Therefore, the Countess de Genlis, greatly influenced by Rousseau’s Emile, or Treatise on Education, established on her estate, at the Chateau de Genlis, a Theater of Education for Children (1776-1780). Here the De Genlis children acted plays written by their far-seeing and gifted mother, who believed that through the wise cultivation of the dramatic instinct children could be taught not only such lessons of language and history as education demanded, but the “elementary lessons of life,” things of the heart and spirit not contained in textbooks. Thus the very first plays ever written for children came to be acted.

The Theater of Education was a rustic one, something in the style of that at the Little Trianon. It had a stage and seats, blue sky for a roof, splendid trees for a background, and sunshine for footlights. In a little play called The Dove the tyranny of dress was satirized. Another play dealt with the “annals of vertue.” Perhaps nowadays we would consider them a little stiff and formal; but we must remember that they were written in a stiff and formal time, and that child-players and child-audience alike found delight in them.

The Theater of Education for Children and the results obtained there attracted the notice of the Electress of Saxony, and Mme. de Genlis therewith became instructress to the children of the Due and Duchesse de Chartres, employing the same methods (i.e., the educational influence of the theater) as she had with her own. History plays were given as a means of teaching history: the child-players took part in small civic processions, riding on gayly caparisoned ponies. How much further this influence might have gone we have no means of determining, for the actual and terrible

drama of the French Revolution began, and its coming rang down the curtain on the first experiment in plays for children. Thereafter there was a lull. Berquin wrote some playlets for children that, as one critic has termed them, “were so moral that they were immoral.” Then there was a return to the same type of adult plays for children that had flourished before. But true child-drama was not dead: it was, like the Princess in the fairy tale, only waiting to be awakened again at the right time.

II

As has been said, the early nineteenth century developed the Christmas pantomime in England, to the great delight of child-audiences. In the midnineteenth century the child again came forward as participator. An operetta for children appeared on the horizon in the form of incidents from Mother Goose, loosely strung together, and containing such popular characters as Little Boy Blue, Miss Muffet, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and Mother Goose herself. This operetta was purely a community production a kind of folk-play, if one might call it so, acted by the children of whatever community happened to give it. Its author’s name is lost in oblivion if it ever had an author; but one somehow believes that, like Topsy, it “just grew.” It was popular alike in England and America: it was healthy, innocent, child-like. The sleeping Princess was waking!

Pinafore was long regarded as an opera to which one might take children, though the whimsicality of its humor was far beyond them; and Uncle Tom’s Cabin was another play to which children were taken, though slave whips and tragic deaths are not now deemed wise entertainment for children.

For a long while these three plays were the only drama for children that America had. Puritan times had frowned on the child-player: Colonial days were too stressful to think of child-drama, and the next decade too poor, too fraught with the rigors of adjustment.

Fashions in drama change, as do all fashions, and if a sturdier idea of boyhood makes Little Lord Fauntleroy seem a trifle too “girlish” for us now, he was in his day a charming, buoyant figure, bringing with him a sense of wholesome reality that showed up Rollo, Sandford and Merton, and the children in Elsie, Queechy, and the Wide, Wide World, for the artificial, goodygoody creatures that they were. Little Lord Fauntleroy and Dearest ended the reign of literature known as “the didactic school for children” and began a dynasty of normal books and stage-plays for young folks. Little Lord Fauntleroy was the hero of the first professional play designed for children, and he appealed to young and old alike, opening the way for the production of

other stage-plays designed for children, 4 such as Prince and Pauper, Editha’s Burglar and The Little Princess, which delighted child-audiences all over the country and are in use to-day in amateur dramatic clubs.

In the public schools (grade schools), with the exception of a few crude attempts at drama, “piece speaking” was still the only use to which the dramatic instinct was put. Children galloped with Paul Revere, or hung breathless from the window with Barbara Fritchie by word of mouth. They never acted.

The social settlements 5 were the first to recognize the need for children’s plays, and put on home-made versions of The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and The Three Bears. These early productions were not up to the standard set to-day, but they served their purpose and their time. They were the forerunners of the work that is now being done. Among the private schools of this country the School of Ethical Culture in New York City is a most significant pioneer in play and festival work, setting a standard for the latter that other schools would do well to emulate.

In 1903 a Children’s Theater, under the direction of Mrs. Nettie Greenleaf, was established in Boston, on Huntington Avenue, near the public library. It gave matinees only: its actors were drawn from the Dorothy Dix Home for Stage Children that is, the children of actors and actresses who were on the road and could not have their little folk with them. The children went to school, like every other normal child, and rehearsed in the late afternoon at about the same hour that other children were practicing fivefinger exercises. The director adhered to the principle of giving two short one-act plays with separate casts rather than a long play, which might prove fatiguing to the young (often very young!) actors. As most of the children planned to enter the same profession as their fathers and mothers when they reached mature years, the afternoon performances of the Children’s Theater were simply an exercise in dramatic art for those taking part. The plays given were largely of the type then produced by the social settlements Cinderella and The Conquest of Santa Claus, etc., the only plays available on a small royalty. They had no especial beauty or ethical quality, but they were the best that could be had. The theater was always well patronized, but was condemned by the authorities as being unsafe (after the Iroquois fire in Chicago caused better fire protection), and was forced to close its doors.

4 The idea that adults could play children’s parts, as Miss Maude Adams does now in Peter Pan, had not then occurred.

5 About 1892.

Also in 1903 in the building owned by the Educational Alliance, New York City, was started The Children’s Theater. It was founded by Miss Alice Minnie Herts, and its dramatic director was Mrs. Emma Sheridan Fry. The work of the theater was along broadly educational lines. Thus the idea that the Countess de Genlis had established a century and more before was made significant in America.

This theater was situated in the heart of New York’s East Side. Its players were drawn from the surrounding neighborhood, its audiences likewise. The ages of those participating in the plays ran all the way from eight or nine to the early twenties. The plays were carefully chosen, with the needs of audience and players in mind. The Tempest was the first play produced: this was followed by Ingomar, As You Like It, and The Fairy Ring. Then came other plays: Little Lord Fauntleroy, Snow White, The Little Princess, Prince and Pauper, Editha’s Burglar, and a number of one-act pieces, including A Comedie Royal, The End of the Way, and The House of the Heart. The theater was always well attended. Its rate of admission was low, and its performances were of undoubted benefit to the community, for children in that neighborhood had little else than tawdry moving-picture shows as their means of recreation, as the licensing board of the “movies” was not then extant. There were three performances a week, and since the neighborhood was largely Hebrew, matinees were given on Sundays. Very often a lecturer would explain the plays in the tongue spoken by the fathers and mothers of the children. This led to a general appreciation of what was being acted. The theater closed in 1909, and after an interval a group of young people, incorporated under the name of The Educational Players, began to carry on the same principles of educational acting that were developed by Mrs. Fry for the Children’s Theater.

But between the closing of this theater and the incorporation of The Educational Players, a significant thing had occurred: plays frankly and avowedly for the public schools had been written, and published. That meant that the drama was not to be confined to whatever spot happened to have a children’s theater, isolated from the rest of the vast city, separated by stern walls of carfare that prohibited many children from going, even if they had the price of admission. The play in the public school meant plays for the children of every district: not only that, but it meant that the plays were to be given free. No admittance fee was to be charged. Moreover, no royalty was to be required for the plays. They were to be acted by amateurs without payment of any kind. They began to be acted in the public schools: sometimes the performances given were good; sometimes they contained much misdirected effort. But always it was effort, a reaching toward the

goal. The demand for plays was so great that the use of the school auditoriums for school drama began. It was coeval with the growing demand for recreation centers.

In 1911, the Educational Players began to work in connection with the public schools; but as the Players were not children, but young men and women, they had children for audience rather than as co-players. Occasionally, however, they co-operated, as exemplified in their excellent school production of The Little Princess, and a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which young people employed in stores and factories played the parts of Titania, Lysander, and Hermia, while school children acted Peasblossom, Mustardseed, and the rest of the fairies. The play was admirably managed from all points of view. The adults and children rehearsed separately, the former in the evening, the latter in the afternoon. Only at the final rehearsals did they rehearse together. Although the performance was to be given indoors, the children’s rehearsals were conducted out of doors, in Bronx Park. Thus the enchanted wood of the play seemed wonderfully real to them, and they were imbibing dramatic instruction and fresh air at the same time!

Feeling the wide and still unfilled needs of schools and social centers for standardized dramatic work, the Educational Dramatic League was organized in January, 1913. (Mrs. August Belmont, President.) Its object was (and is) the promotion in Public Schools, Social Centers, Recreation and Civic Centers of Amateur Dramatic Performances having an educational value. Its object is national, not local. It stands ready to advise clubs and schools the country over. Its plans are both idealistic and utilitarian: for, while raising the standard of dramatic production, it calls for no new equipment, but only a better utilization of the material at hand. Youthful dramatic “clubs” have sprung up in schools and settlements, and the League works co-operatively with these, lending books of plays, histories of the drama, costume plates, costumes, and sets of screens for backgrounds for a very small sum. It also suggests leaders or teachers for the various clubs; and sustains a class that teaches teachers how to direct plays. Last year in New York City fifty-one teachers were registered members of the League. Twenty-five clubs came under the League’s stimulating influence: there were twelve associate clubs, and three classes in story-playing. And this after only a year’s work!

The League actively co-operated with such associations as the Music School Settlement, the New York Kindergarten Association, the Gerry Society, Young Women’s Christian Association, the Vacation Committee, the Camp Fire Girls, the Public Schools, the Recreation Centers, and many

Settlements. It was found that the ages of those wishing to enroll with the League ranged all the way from eight to twenty-six, so Junior and Senior departments were formed. In order to bring about co-operation and promote a community spirit in these unrelated groups, a competition was organized, and a bronze tablet supplemented by a money prize was offered for the best performance. The tablet must be awarded three successive times to the same club in order to be permanently won. In the 1913 competition the play selected for the Juniors was The House of the Heart, and for the Seniors Pygmalion and Galatea. For the 1914 competition the Junior play is the first act of The Little Princess, and the Senior play Clyde Fitch’s Nathan Hale. With the Juniors the greatest care is taken that no over-fatigue or excitement shall mar the performance. The League believes in early hours and short plays for children; in having plays throughout the city rather than in one district; and in having a high standard for the least thing done. The aims of the League are indorsed by such well-known authors as Edmond Rostand, Maurice Maeterlinck, Lady Gregory, Sir Arthur Pinero, Arnold Bennett, and John Galsworthy.

In all the highways and byways of the city life child-drama is making itself manifest. Story-telling in the New York Public Libraries has led to giving plays in the libraries. Usually the play is told in story form first, and acted afterwards. Outdoor plays have been given on recreation piers, and city roofs, as well as in the sylvan reaches of the parks.

Educators find in the children’s play a wonderful means of developing defectives. Plays are given by the deaf and dumb; also story pantomimes are acted by the latter. Blind children recently gave a one-act play in aid of the Lighthouse, a recreative center for the blind.

The church, which in medieval times first fostered the play movement, is now returning to its ancient belief in drama as a moral force. St. George’s Church is particularly active in this direction, and has given some unique performances of St. George and the Dragon, the street in front of the church being closed to traffic while the play was in progress. A play given outdoors in a city street! St. George and the Dragon in the heart of New York City, pavements underfoot, city blocks on all sides, their windows crowded with the heads of spectators intent on seeing children act a medieval play! 6

Festival plays for children are given on some of the Jewish feast-days. Children’s plays are given under the auspices of several of the Catholic

6 In this connection might be noted Eager Heart, a beautiful Christmas mystery play, produced by various communities throughout the country at the holiday season.

churches. Performances by the Ben Greet Players (professional actors, not young people) have been given under the auspices of The Wage-Earners’ Theater League in the school-yards of Manhattan. Performances by this company have also been given in the public school auditoriums at a price that put them within the reach of anyone. The Shakespeare Centenary, May, 1914, was celebrated not only by performances by this company, but by children’s festivals in the parks, and public school performances by the Dramatic League and the Educational Players.

All this represents the work done in New York City; but all over the country the influence of child-drama is being felt. In Ohio, in 1911, Group Readings were introduced into the public schools through the pages of The Normal Instructor. A folk-play in three acts and five scenes (The Silver Thread) was studied in the schoolrooms. The play had a large cast, and each child was made responsible for whatever character he or she assumed. The scenes were laid in Cornwall, and everything connected with Cornish history and geography was diligently studied. This was the first time that Group Reading had ever been used in the public schools, and it proved extremely serviceable. It kept the children interested, their English improved through play-reading, the urge of the drama as it gathered impetus made for clearer enunciation. This method is now in use in many of the schools.

In Cincinnati the School of Expression conducts a Children’s Theater, giving special performances every year, the students in the school taking part, and the school children of Cincinnati forming the audience. The little theater of Hull House, Chicago, gives splendid productions of children’s plays; the social settlements of Boston, notably Lincoln House and South End House, are equally active along these lines. Under the auspices of the Boston Women’s Educational and Industrial Union has been established an association called the Children’s Players a group of amateurs from college and private dramatic clubs, acting under the Union’s management. Each year they present a play for children, generally during the Christmas holidays. It is staged in a local theater. Three performances are given, two matinees and a morning dress rehearsal. The matinees are played at the usual theater rates; at the morning performance the seats are placed within the range of the most slender pocketbook, so that children from all over the city can attend. A little theater called The House of Play, in Washington, D. C., regularly produces plays for children and young people, children forming both audience and player-guild. The theater is run under the auspices of the Drama League. Neighborhood House, a Washington Settlement, gives children’s plays and festivals, the costumes of which are all designed, dyed, and made up at the settlement itself. The performances of

the Ethical Culture School in New York have already been mentioned. All the settlements in New York have departments of child-drama, including the University Settlement, Greenwich House (which gives a Children’s Festival every year), and the Henry Street Settlement, where splendid work is done under the direction of the Misses Lewisohn.

The ten settlements of Brooklyn, N. Y., united in 1911 in giving in Prospect Park The Pageant of Patriots, the first children’s historical pageant ever given in America. It does not rightly belong under the heading of plays, save that each episode in the pageant was written in a play form, which made it possible to detach it from the whole pageant and give it separately. This pageant dealt with the youth of American heroes and depicted scenes from the lives of Daniel Boone, Franklin, Washington, and Lincoln before an audience of ten thousand people. Up to that time the settlements had carried on their dramatic work separately, but the pageant drew them all together to work for a common cause. Each settlement took an episode in the pageant, and after the pageant was over these episodes were repeated by some of the settlements in their own districts. Later this pageant was given for the “Safe and Sane Fourth” of Boston and other cities.

During the week of June 7, 1914, a Festival and Pageant of Nations was produced in New York City under the auspices and guidance of The People’s Institute and Social Center Public School 63. Every afternoon and evening during the entire week singing, dancing, and drills took place in a huge cleared space running from Eleventh to Twelfth Street, and from Avenue A to First Avenue. The culmination of the pageant was marked by a beautiful symbolical idea of the different nations bringing to Columbia gifts that typified their chief arts and industries. Everywhere was life, movement, color. Italians marching under their gay banners, Jews with the blue and white flag of Zion, Hungarians, Russians, Poles, Galicians, Germans, and Norwegians all in folk-costume. Two thousand children and one thousand grown-ups participated in the pageant before an audience of about twenty thousand people. It brought about a tremendous stimulation of race pride and race intelligence. Besides this children are participating in all the adult historical pageants that are lending to our own time something of the glory of medieval days, pageants that give the youth of our country a clear idea of the development of both national and community history. As little Puritans, Indians, Colonials, and Pioneers, children have greatly added to the effectiveness of the Pageants of Peterboro, Deerfield, Schenectady, Arlington, Thetford, Westchester, Portland, and others. As in the old days, they are now participating in Masques, in the St. Gaudens Masque, The Bird Masque, The Masque of St. Louis, in the Allegory given on the steps

of the Treasury in Washington, D. C.

The Drama League, established for the furtherance of the best plays, has branches in all the large cities and towns, and maintains a Junior Department which issues pamphlets listing available plays for children. It also supplies lecturers on child-drama.

Meantime, in the professional theaters, the charm of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and the delicate fantasy of such plays as Snow White, Peter Pan, and The Blue Bird, have given such children as were fortunate enough to see them much of the material of dreams.

The Blue Bird and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm were both produced in England, where, partly due to the rise of the Historical Pageant movement, plays for children received a sudden impetus. They are not yet used educationally as in America, but undoubtedly they will be in time. The social settlements of England are active in producing children’s plays, notably Toynbee Hall, London, where the first children’s Pageant of English History, by Louis N. Parker, was given in 1910. A collection of English history plays are published, and their amateur performance furthered by the “League of the Empire.” These plays deal with the heroes of English history, with Alfred, Richard Coeur de Lion, bluff King Hal, the Black Prince, Robin Hood, and so on; and inculcate patriotism, not only in Merrie England, but in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, wherever child-players of the empire are. “The Guild of Play” strives to conserve the national folkdances and festivals: it collects and publishes these, as well as music and costume plates. The Bermondsey Guild of Play-children took an important part in the great English Church Pageant of 1909. The Village Children’s Historical Play Society was founded in Winchelsea in 1910. As its title indicates, it gives historical plays. The productions are of a high standard, dramatically and artistically. Ludlow Castle, a play by the Hon. Mrs, Percy Mathewson, was given this year. The very beautiful costumes were designed by Edith Craig. In Ireland, largely due to the influence of the Irish Theater, poetic plays of Irish history are given in the boys’ schools, with a beauty and simplicity of effect such as we have come to associate with the performances of the Irish Players.

In the other countries of Europe, in the spontaneous Italian festivals, in German pageants similar to that of Rothenburg, in the children’s festivals given at Versailles, at the performances of the Instituto Internationale in Spain, everywhere the child-drama movement is slowly yet surely coming into its own, though by far the greatest strides have been made by America and England indeed, in the respect of utilizing drama as an educational force in its public schools, America may be said to lead the world.

The child-drama movement is only a part of the whole great movement of recreative art made manifest on all sides through pageantry, festival, and the masque a movement reaching toward that “redemption of leisure” set forth so glowingly in the Civic Theater. By strange roads and ways, with many backward turnings and cessations, and again with the rush of forced marches, has the children’s play movement gone forward. Much has been done. Much is yet to do. But that it will be done who can question?

CHAPTER 2

Child-Player and Child-Audience

One of the first questions that arise in dealing with plays for children is: Why should there be plays for children at all? What claim have they on drama? Why are children’s plays now given in all our school-houses, settlements, camps, and recreation centers? Yet one does not have to look far for the answer. It is written in the eager, vivid faces of children waiting outside the “nickel arcades” in our great cities; it is sometimes stamped on the heavy, uninspired countenances of country children who have “never had a chance,” for whom the imaginative life is a closed book. The former are avid in their quest for the stuff that is the substance of dreams; the latter do not know that the stuff exists. The needs of each are so vital and imperative that it is hard to determine which requires guidance most.

In The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, Jane Addams has shown us, with crystal clearness, a picture of “a group of children and young people emerging from a theater with the magic of the play still thick upon them.” They have been for hours in their “veritable house of dreams”; now once again they face the world of actuality. If they belong to the rank and file of everyday, has what they witnessed in “the house of dreams” brought something beautiful and glamourous into the harsh realities of their daily lives? Has it given them something of inner strength with which to meet the actualities? For to-day we know it is not only the work or study hours of the individual that are important: we have come to realize that the leisure hours are equally significant, equally fraught with redemption or menace. We know that in an age of abnormal commercialism one of the chief needs is the freeing of the imagination. Age resigns its dreams; youth demands that its dreams be fulfilled, it urges that the gray of life be shot with the iridescence of the heroic and wonderful. Above all, it demands action, and it is an incontestable fact that drama is action, that it makes a more dynamic appeal to all sorts and conditions than does any other art. It can both waken and guide. It appeals to all young people and children through the dramatic instinct, the instinct that strives to fulfill youth’s dreams, that yearns to be heroic, wonderful, and different. To conserve this instinct and to turn it into the right channels is what the child-drama movement is trying to do

by supplying adequate plays for children, and places in which to give the plays.

That this dramatic instinct is well-nigh universal goes almost without saying. There is a spark of the dramatic instinct in almost everyone, just as there is a spark, though often obscured, of the poetic instinct. The poet is the seer, or se-er. Cultivate the dramatic instinct, and you waken the poetic. Vitalize the poetic, and you make people see. It is the people who see that have moved the world. Jane Addams is a poet working in terms of humanity; Galileo was a poet working in terms of astronomy. Nations are judged, not by their natural resources or the wealth their citizens have, but by the human beings they produce. And the right use of the dramatic instinct tends to develop human beings. It can confidently be claimed for it that it is of benefit to the child-player, the child-audience, and the community at large. Let us consider them in turn.

Child-Player

In the first place, it must be made clear that the development of the dramatic instinct does not tend to make actors, but imaginative human beings. To study music in the schools does not necessarily mean that one must be a musician. Drawing is taught in all the schools, but that does not mean that every school-child is to become an artist. It is merely enlarging his horizon, adding to his store of knowledge, making him a more appreciative citizen. And this is precisely what the child-drama movement strives to do. It seeks to widen horizons mentally and ethically, to provide a fabric for dreams, since out of dreams, from time immemorial, has sprung achievement.

In all children there is a love of the beautiful and heroic, though it is often hidden under layers of bashfulness, stultification, or seeming indifference. One has only to rouse the dormant dramatic instinct to find that this love is there. It exists equally in the Child-who-has-Too-Little and the Child-who-has-Too-Much. Give a farm-child a chance to be a young Minute Man, give a little newsboy, once in his life, a chance to be a hero; let an average little girl play she is a princess a princess with sweet and gracious manners; let the Child-who-has-Too-Much become a little pioneer without luxuries who must make the most of everything that comes her way, and, under wise guidance, you have done something for all of them. You have given them the reaction of a new environment. The newsboy dropped the patois of the street to become the hero; the young Minute Man must hold himself erect; the little princess played with charm of manner; the youthful pioneer enlarged her vision. More than this: if the play has literary value,

they have added to their vocabulary, stimulated their memories, and learned to express themselves. Clearness of enunciation has been gained; they have obtained a knowledge of team-work, of how necessary the effort of each individual is to the success of any undertaking. Moreover, if the play has any real value (and from the standpoint of Mme. de Genlis and all other workers in child dramatics this is the most important thing of all) they have gained an ethical lesson, a “criticism of life.”

Says the bulletin of the Educational Dramatic League: “We train the young in statistics, in how to work. Isn’t it worth while to add to their training a little knowledge of that vital part of them their emotions? Show them the point, the critical moment in which the villain of the play becomes villain, and how the same emotion which brought this about, differently handled, could have made him a hero.” Thus countless lessons can be taught through child-drama. What was The Blue Bird but an inspired preachment that the humblest, humdrum things of life were often the most beautiful?

Give children a morality play to act, and they learn something of the effects of good and evil; give them a fairy play, and you have taken them into the country of the imagination; give them a nature play, and they grasp a knowledge of the world around them; while a history play makes them appreciate the valor and self-sacrifice that went to the upbuilding of our nation. This much the play can do for the child-player. It is an acknowledged fact. But it might do even more. For the average citizen life is filled with work and conflict, with a hundred setbacks and unexpected difficulties. Why not teach the child who is later to be the citizen to live dramatically, to dramatize his difficulties? It will give interest and color to life, and lend keen exhilaration to what otherwise might be a gray and discouraging existence. Poverty is a monster to be conquered. Discontent another. Failure another. Difficulty an antagonist to whom one must give deadly combat if one would succeed. Through the stimulus of the dramatic instinct many a war might be won on the battleground of the spirit.

Vocational Guidance is a modern movement that could be greatly aided through drama real drama, I mean, not the inner drama. Vocational Guidance should be dramatized. The trades and their demands, rewards, and opportunities could be clearly shown. Such plays would go far toward solving the problem of the misfit, the hopeless drifters that fill our cities. For surely one of the greatest tragedies of our American life is this very misfitness. There is no more calamitous figure than the youth who is drifting, who has not discovered what he wants of life, and no moment more filled with import than that in which he discovers what his goal is to be. Everyone

knows the story of how the youthful Benjamin Franklin was taken by his father to see all the different trades, with tradesmen at work, so that he might actually visualize them, and make his choice of a lifework wisely and whole-heartedly. Plays for Vocational Guidance might do just this. Remedial plays, they might be called. They could also teach that it is never too late to make a fresh beginning, or to start anew. Endurance, Struggle, Courage, Hope, are all figures to stir the heart of youth, and they can be seen banishing the figures of Too-Late or Never-Never! The Ideal and the fight to attain it is not too difficult of comprehension for the schoolgirl or schoolboy in the higher grades, in those years when the thoughts of youth are “long, long thoughts.” “Blessed is the man who has found his work,” says Carlyle, and the boy is father to him.

“But suppose that child-drama cultivates a love of acting,” cries the extreme conservative. To which one can answer, “Is not amateur acting on a par with amateur music? Is not the child or adult entitled to “imagination in recreation”? “The love of any art gives joy to its votary. Better the youth of the country expressing themselves through plays, festivals, and folkdance than through street-corner lounging, dance halls, and billiard rooms in the cities, and inanition and gossip in the country towns. The golden days of Greece and the great days of Queen Elizabeth were play-acting epochs, and do not seem to have been the worse for it. It is true that there were no plays for children in the Elizabethan era, and it is a pity that there were not. But the children of that time did not need them as do the children of to-day. They were living in an imaginative age filled with balladry, festival, and story, with high adventure and marvelous discoveries on all sides. Life itself was a play, romantic and colorful. Compare the life of that time and the monotony of our dun city streets, a monotony against which youth is in continual revolt. If plays are not selected for children, in many instances they will select them for themselves. Mrs. Charles Israels says:

“Most interesting is the change which has come over amateur dramatics in young people’s organizations,” and quotes the following instances:

“Twelve or thirteen years ago, when in charge of all the entertainment work at the Educational Alliance (New York City), I came in contact with many boys’ clubs with dramatic ambitions. Those were the palmy days of melodrama at the Third Avenue and the Bowery Theaters. As soon as a play was produced its story was printed in the evening papers with all the original dialogue merely connected by a sufficient number of ‘he saids’ and ‘she saids.’ These stories were clipped from the papers, pasted into blankbooks, and became the script from which the play was rehearsed.”

“Original plays were written to follow these models, and a typical

programme offered would consist of a play or plays entitled:

The Bandit’s Revenge.

The Captain’s Band.

Guilty, or the Pirate King’s Reward.

“We introduced new standards, and among the plays produced were a version of the courtroom scene in Puddinhead Wilson, Men and Women, and many home-made versions of fairy tales and children’s verses, and stories.”

To-day, through wise guidance, the same type of club may give, as did the boys of South End House, Boston, a production of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, which combines exciting incident and literary quality.

The Child-Audience

Walt Whitman said, “To have great poets we must have great audiences.” The children of to-day will be the audience of to-morrow. To have great drama we must have great audiences. Train the dramatic instinct of the children of to-day, and the drama of tomorrow will be great drama because its audience will demand it. In all the schools children are taught the poetry of Stevenson and Longfellow in the hope that when they are older they will love not only Stevenson and Longfellow, but Shelley and Shakespeare. If it is worth while to train a child’s literary taste, why is it not worth while to train his dramatic taste? Why is it not imperative to make him see the difference between true and false dramatic values, between the tawdry and the beautiful? Watch a child-audience rapt with the loveliness and surprise of The Blue Bird, or wide-eyed at the fairies in the treetops of Peter Pan. They have entered into their own world. It is as real to them as it is fantastic to us. “Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?” asks a little girl, peering into the door of the Hull House Theater, or “Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?”

The love of drama is so deep-rooted a human instinct that children have it as well as adults. All over the country, in city or in village, boys and girls are keenly anxious to u see a show,” when an opportunity offers. If no professional plays for children, such as Snow White or The Blue Bird, happen to be available, they (the children) are taken to vaudeville or comic opera. They go, willingly enough. But of the heritage of childhood they receive nothing. They are given nothing that they can rightly understand.

In all the large cities children frequent the moving-picture shows, and since there are no Children’s Moving-Picture Theaters the youthful audience is served a dish of lurid melodrama, comic supplement humor, or sundry comments on domestic felicity. Children are greatly influenced by what

they see in these theaters. The night courts devoted to youthful culprits are filled with echoes of, “I seen it at the moving-picture show.” Says an English playwright, “The theater is literally making the minds of our urban population to-day. It is a huge factory of sentiment, of character, of points of honor, of conceptions of conduct, of everything that finally determines the destiny of a nation. The theater is not only a place of amusement, it is a place of culture, a place where people learn to think, act, and feel.” Especially is this true of the large cities. One has only to walk along Fourteenth Street near Union Square in New York to see hordes of drama-hungry youngsters gazing voraciously at the florid signs of the penny arcades and “gem-theaters.” One longs to put a wholesome children’s theater into this very spot with Robert Louis Stevenson’s immortal

“Come up here, oh dusty feet, Here is fairy bread to eat,”

painted in larger letters over the door. Dramas might be presented here that would send their child-audiences out into the dingy thoroughfare fortified with visions of imaginative beauty. The players might be nonprofessional; the admittance fee within the reach of all. And it is an actual fact that children prefer the best in drama when it is given to them. They will desert cheap melodrama in favor of imaginative drama nine times out of ten; and it is a boon beyond estimate that they can have the auditoriums of the New York Public Schools in which to work out their plays, and in working, grow. Nothing is more needed than that our public schools should become our community theaters, the home of children’s plays the country over.

Community Benefit

What of the fathers and mothers of the child-players? What of their older sisters and brothers? One of the greatest things the movement for children’s plays has done is the way it has drawn people together. In country districts people come for miles to see the production of a children’s play. But it is in the city that the greatest benefits are derived. A performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays on the East Side, by a cast of young immigrants, resulted in arousing an interest in the fathers and mothers who could speak no English. The children explained the play to them. Cheap editions were bought and read. And presently work-worn parents who never stepped beyond their own thresholds after nightfall became suddenly eager to see what had so enthralled their children. Older brothers and sisters went “to find out what the young ones were doing.” It was a get-together time for the whole neighborhood, a time of family and community pride.

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

To quote again from the bulletin of The Educational Dramatic League, “To a vast number of people the theater is prohibitive in price, but with the players drawn from the 700,000 school children of New York, all the young wage-earners, and with the free use of the school auditoriums, good plays can be produced with practically no cost to the community. It will also bring into the lives of the fathers and mothers, as well as the young people, a wholesome and enjoyable social companionship. The work is being carried on largely in the congested districts, where the parents of the children have little time, and less money for amusements. The plays bring recreation nearer to them, with the added joy that their children are creating this means of pleasure.” Other cities might follow this example.

All of the young players enrolled in the League, although they come from different parts of the city, genuinely and heartily co-operate with one another. If a special or trial performance is coming off, and illness of a player threatens to make production impossible, offers of assistance from other clubs who are rehearsing the same play are immediately made. They cheerfully and interestedly help one another, and are glad to substitute players, costumes, settings, and properties. This is the spirit that a great city needs. So many young people come to New York to start life filled with the spirit of love of amusement, and from lack of knowledge of where and how to obtain it form bad habits and make detrimental acquaintances; others who move from one community to another feel equally adrift.” The League keeps a list of clubs in different neighborhoods, so as to be of assistance to those who wish to join a club in a given community. This might be done elsewhere, in many of our cities.

Dramatic clubs for children fostered in school or settlement carry their impetus far beyond school or settlement room. The Educational Dramatic League reports a benefit given by children for the Prison Association. Colored children, under a League director, produced a play in their own clubroom, once for their mothers, once for the children of the neighborhood. Then they went a-field and gave the play at the Lincoln Hospital for aged couples and the Colored Orphan Asylum. This is an idea containing distinct community benefit.

Our public schools as community theaters can be and should be a socializing force for player, for audience, for community at large. The more difficult the task, “the more,” as Jane Addams says, “does the effort need help and direction, both in the development of its technique and the material of its themes. The few attempts that have been made in this direction are astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education.”

CHAPTER 3

How to Produce Children’s Plays

A director of a children’s play stands to the children in the relation that the director of an orchestra does to his players. It is the business of the director of the orchestra to control and guide, to see that the violins shimmer and the ‘cellos throb at the right moment. He must bring the utmost out of the players as individuals, and of the orchestra as a whole. He must interpret the symphony as the musician who wrote it intended it should be interpreted. This is also the task of the director of children’s plays, who must bring out all the sweetness, the unconscious grace, and child-like charm of the child-players, and yet keep to the original purpose of the playwright. The director must know the play backward and forward, must recognize the points to be emphasized, and move toward the climax with a sharp or gradual crescendo as the play demands.

Every play, long or short, has its rhythm, just as music has. There is not only the rhythm of the whole play, but a rhythm for each act, and innumerable crescendos and diminuendos. These signs guide the orchestra, and it is the greatest pity that there are no signs to guide the director of children’s plays. If one could only say, “Fast here. Slow here. Wistful lightness here,” and so on, what wonders might not be accomplished. The children’s playwright could indicate largo, presto, and grazioso with a happy hand! But since no play signs exist, the director must gather as much as possible from a thorough reading of the text and play directions. One of the greatest faults of the average play given by amateurs, whether adults or children, is the slowness of its tempo. A remedy for this will be discussed later on.

The orchestra director may select a whole symphony, or a programme of short pieces. The play director may choose a long or a short children’s play. If a short play is chosen, and only runs twenty minutes when you meant it to run half an hour, or when it runs twenty-five minutes when you meant it to run forty, do not lengthen it by devices of your own. Better a programme of two or even three one-act plays than that utter abomination, “a short play made long enough.” Better something brief and exquisite than something long and patchy. We all know the type of dramatic entertainment that is “good in spots,” like the unhappy curate’s soft-boiled egg. A

children’s play is not a minstrel show. It does not need interpolations. To put in an “extra” dance or song often destroys its symmetry. You do not lengthen a sonatina by devices of your own; why lengthen a children’s play? Trust the author. The chances are that if he wrote the play he knows as much and perhaps even a little more than the producer who is directing it for the first time.

A good test of a play is its suitability for all occasions. Between a stageplay and a school play should lie only the difference of environment. A school play should contain such simple elemental dramatic values that, if suddenly transplanted to the stage, it would still retain them. A stage-play for child-audiences that cannot be stripped of its ornamental trappings without losing its charm for schoolroom audiences is fundamentally not a play for children. Jessie Braham White’s version of Snow White as produced by Winthrop Ames is an example in point. With its beautifully simple scenery and costumes it was a delightful thing for children to see on the professional stages; yet read, not even acted in a New York schoolroom, it proved enthralling to an audience of children who had never seen it on the stage.

Of late years, since plays for children have become part of the school curriculum, standards of production are being raised. Plays for children are no longer chosen at haphazard. They must have a certain ethical and literary value. The time has come when child-drama is as carefully selected as children’s music. The best music teachers will not tolerate trashy ragtime. The best producers of children’s plays will not tolerate vapid drama and slovenly enunciation. Besides exercising more care in play selection, the world at large has come to realize that play-producing is an art in itself, and play-producing for children a very delicate and subtle one. Child-drama should have lines as straight and delicate as a Boutet de Monvel painting. Everything should be naive and simple, and yet the production should have the art which conceals art.

The first thing to do in producing a children’s play is to ask yourself questions, and their answer will naturally help you to decide what sort of play you wish to undertake, long or short, simple or complex, though if children have never acted before, it is well to begin with a short one. Is it to be in the country or city? Indoors or out of doors? For a school or settlement? Is the cast to be large or small? All boys? All girls? Or girls and boys? Do you wish to produce the play for the sheer joy of doing something that will have artistic and educational value? Is it to celebrate some national holiday? Or is it part of a pedagogical scheme? Is it to be given as a means of raising money for some school or settlement? In which case you must

perforce make a good showing, and give the kingliest boy the kingliest part. Or are you free to give the most round-shouldered boy the kingliest part to make him hold himself erect? Will it be possible to train two casts so that both kingly and round-shouldered boys can have a chance at it? For this is the ideal way. Always train two casts when possible. One supplements the other. Then, what sort of a play are you going to give? A modern play? A fairy play? An historical play, or a nature play?

If expensive, or the most inexpensive costumes are out of the question, choose a modern play, and let the children wear their everyday clothes. A national holiday calls for a play that is appropriate to the time. If your players have been studying Lincoln, why not give a Lincoln play? A nature play suggests itself as fitted for a camp; a morality play is good for a guild, or for the Lenten season; while for almost all occasions, indoors or out, that hardy perennial, the fairy play, can be depended on. Emigrant and nativeborn children enjoy them equally. “Fairy tales,” says Gilbert Chesterton, ‘are our only democratic institution: all the classes have read all the fairy tales.”

While it is not always wise to leave the entire selection of a play to children, never force a play on them. They must have delight and pride in what they do or it avails them nothing. Take something suited to their environment and temperament. Above all, select something that is too difficult rather than something too easy: children despise what they feel is beneath their powers. For the “gang,” eager for excitement, no quiet play will do: a rousing patriotic play, something that centers about a hero, or a play with Indians in it, makes a strong appeal to the gang spirit. Boy Scouts are keen for plays of the open: something that suggests the camp fire or the trail. For Camp Fire Girls, plays of Indian legends, or pioneer life are appropriate. Boys in a country school are also eager to act Indian or pioneer plays; while for country girls the fairy play is best to begin with. The country child lacks imagination. Country life is usually a life of fact. There are no fairies out beneath the moon; no dryads in the trees; no river spirits in the brooks. Therefore, country children need fantastic plays. For emigrant children who speak little English, try a folk-play of their own nation, put into English words. It will give them an idea of the value of the arts of their own land. If their parents come to see it they can probably understand a part, at least, of what is going on, and it will be a bond drawing the family together. If, as sometimes happens, you have a group of girls of varying ages, the youngest seven, the oldest thirteen or fourteen, try a morality play in which the characters have no particular age, when they represent qualities rather than personalities. For a boys’ or girls’ camp use a nature play that will carry with

it some knowledge of woodcraft or animal lore. For the settlement, the camp, or garden, a fairy play comes into use. It is also the best play to use for defectives. Plays with an outdoor setting should be produced in the tenement districts where the people-who-have-too-little forget what trees and grass look like, forget the beauty of forest-green.

Whatever play you select, be sure of three things: that it has literary quality, dramatic quality, and that it contains an idea. By literary quality is meant that the language should be poetic. There is no benefit in the memorizing of commonplace lines. By dramatic quality is meant that the play should have an interesting plot, with a climax. Lack of climax, or culminating point, is the lack of most children’s plays. That the play should contain an idea means that it should teach some dominant truth either subtly or openly. It may be either the great lesson of courage in adverse circumstances, or the simple lesson that happiness, like the Blue Bird, can be found at home.

The range of emotion in child-drama is, of course, restricted: such things as money-lust, power-lust, vice, social ambition, despair, or trickiness do not exist for normal children. They are beyond their range. Neither should children’s plays contain love-making or sentiment. In acting such scenes they are merely aping emotions that they have never felt, and acting for children should be as direct and sincere as it is possible to make it. It should carry with it a distinct atmosphere of simplicity and candor. There should be no straining after effect, no appeal that does not spring directly from the heart. The child should be expressing his or her inward self not acting, in the adult sense of the word. For this reason the characters which children represent should be those of a common and deep humanity. It would be ideal if children could always act characters of their own years, whose feelings they could at once appreciate. But since this is not always possible the other folk who figure so largely in children’s plays quaint fairies, peasants, trolls, woodcutters, and the like should have that artlessness that is akin to the artlessness of childhood.

Suppose the play is chosen, and the director ready to rehearse it. Gather the children together and set the dates for the rehearsals, so that there can be no mistake, no excuses about attending. Find out the afternoons or early evenings that are nearest to suiting everybody. No hard and fast rule for the number of rehearsals required can be given here. Twenty rehearsals should suffice for a somewhat long and complex play, with a month to six weeks to rehearse it in. Ten rehearsals, undertaken in three weeks to a month, should suffice for a one-act play; but, of course, all depends on the mental equipment of the players. Too long a time in play preparation “stales” the players.

They lose their interest. For little children rehearsing should not occupy more than two weeks, and the play should be very short. Length of rehearsal hours differs according to the ages of the players. For those in the grammar grades an hour and a half at a time should be the most. If attention seems to flag, and the children are tired, it will often be advisable to shorten the time. For little children half-hour rehearsals are sufficient. And for children from eight to eleven years old an hour’s rehearsal is sufficient.

The final or dress rehearsal will always be longer than any of the others, and in setting a date for it, extra time must be allowed, particularly in the case of a long play. Three rehearsals a week make a wholesome average. But the director must judge about this, using tact and common sense in all things, and avoiding strain to the players.

As has been suggested, if the children have never acted before, begin with a simple play, preferably in one act. And whether children have ever acted before or not, the method of producing the play is exactly the same; for, like everything else in the world, play-producing for children has a right way and a wrong way, a way that leads nowhere and a way that makes for genuine accomplishment.

There are two ways of selecting the cast. First, competitive choice; second, having the cast chosen by the director. In competitive choice, a selection from the play is read by all the children in rotation. The one that puts the most fervor or imagination into the reading of the lines is, by general vote, selected for the leading part. Then the one to fill the next part is chosen. The most important parts are filled first; then the less important. It is made clear to the players that merit decides the choice. If two casts are trained, the players who have the most important parts in the first cast are given the least important parts in the second cast. This serves two purposes. It gives all the players a chance, and prepares for any emergency that may arise. If one player is ill on the eve of performance, another can take his place. Moreover, it develops discipline. If a player knows that slackness or inattention on his part will result in another player’s having it, he sets himself more ardently to the task in hand. If the children are undisciplined, have it understood that two absences from rehearsal without sufficient excuse will debar them from the part originally assigned.

When the cast is chosen by the director let the children understand from the first that they are to abide by that choice. If the director apportions the parts according to remedial reasons, see that the sluggishly inclined children have brisk parts, that the shy child has something appealing to say and do, that the bumptious, forward child plays a character who is controlled and quiet. Unless there is some exceedingly good reason for it, do

not deviate when once the parts have been assigned. If some of the children are to be put in charge of the properties, scenery, or lighting, select children on whom you can depend, discuss and apportion their duties at this first meeting. If properties must be made, all the children in the cast must agree to help. It will be well to set a date when they will meet and make them.

As soon as all the parts are assigned, have the children read the play aloud in rotation, each child reading when the character assigned to him begins to speak. This is the time when faults in pronunciation, in diction, in sing-songiness can be broken. Accustom them from the first to the right way of doing things. It is easier to be correct from the first than to hark back and undo what has already been done. If a child reads a line incorrectly more than once it is apt to become a habit. If the children make the character they are interpreting speak in a peculiar way, ask them why they do it. Get at their reasons. Show them logically why another way might be better, or why their way is good. Discuss the play and its characters as they go. A good deal has been said nowadays about letting children interpret their own ideas of a character. This is an excellent thing, stimulating alike the player and director. But it can be carried too far. A child may often interpret a character wrongly. We do not expect a child to interpret music entirely as to his own ideas, pedaling when he pleases, playing pianissimo or forte, as the spirit moves him. All character interpretation should be subject to the molding influence of class discussion and the analysis of the play. For, after the play has been read once around by the cast it is time for one of the most important parts of play-producing to begin: namely, play analysis. This means a full discussion of all the points of the play, an example of which is given in the next chapter.

Discussion, analysis, and play-reading will probably occupy the first two rehearsals of a one-act play; but at the close of the first rehearsal have the players understand that at the third rehearsal they are to be letter-perfect in their lines, and that no actual acting will occur until this has been accomplished. Thus any child who lags in fulfilling this duty is made to realize that he or she is holding back all the rest, and the general eagerness to “begin to act the story” will wing their memories as nothing else can.

The third rehearsal is a line rehearsal That is, a rehearsal for lines only. Have them go through the play from memory twice, prompting only when absolutely necessary. The first time they may go slowly, so as to correct mistakes, and the second time briskly, as if the actual performance were going on. Correct here, suggest there. Have them from the first take up their cues with the utmost celerity. If all is not as it should be, never make a child nervous by nagging. Tell him that his interpretation will do for the present,

and then work with him a little after the others have gone. Or have him come early at the following rehearsal. Encouragement and praise will do wonders for a backward, nervous child. The director should recognize effort and the will to do, no matter how cloaked or hidden by inability or mistakes. At the end of this third rehearsal take up a little of the actual acting, so that the children will not think you are too long in getting to the “fun” of the play.

Rough out the whole play at the next rehearsal, so that the players will have an idea of what it is going to be. Have the players move quickly and quietly through their exits and entrances, and know their positions on the stage. Begin to work with properties from the first, so that the players will become accustomed to them. If a basket of fruit or a fairy wand is to be used, have them on hand. It does not matter if the basket of fruit is a grape basket filled with rubber balls, and the wand a blackboard pointer or cane. The easy use of them is the thing to be gained. Do not be discouraged if this rehearsal does not come up to your expectations. Remember that it is only in the rough.

At the next rehearsal begin to mold the performance. See that the right points are emphasized. Repeat scenes till they have the finish which they ought to have. Be sure that your rehearsals are taking place in a room of the right size; that is, a size as nearly like the stage where the play will actually be performed as possible. Too cramped a room will make all the motions of the children cramped, and to rehearse in too large a room when the stage is to be smaller will confuse them dreadfully. If you must rehearse in a room that is either too large or too small, try to have one early rehearsal on the stage where the play will finally be given, and let the children make allowances for space in their later work. This is one of the most trying things that directors have to deal with. Always rehearse on the stage that will be used on the final day, if possible.

At the fifth or sixth rehearsal, if you are training two casts, one cast can watch another cast at work. Do not permit whispering or sotto voce remarks while rehearsals are going on by those who are not rehearsing. Sound and movement are distressing to those who are trying to do their best. This is another rule that should be understood from the first.

If the play happens to have a large number of supernumeraries (players whose presence is necessary to the play, but who have few or no lines) have a rehearsal for them alone. Don’t let them stand idly on your stage, staring blankly at the audience. If they are fairies, see that they form exquisite fairylike groups. If they are to form a still background, see that they are well posed and natural. Give them comfortable positions that they can hold

easily. If they are to form an animated background, give them plenty of stage business, i.e., silent action or pantomime. Let them suggest as much of the stage business as possible. Suppose it is a market scene. Have them buying and selling. Have the driving of hard bargains going on in the background, while the main characters talk in the foreground. But if something unusually exciting is occurring to the main characters, then have all the buyers and sellers crowding up on tiptoe with curiosity, with gaping “What is this?” or with head-wagging of “I told you this might be expected!” In other words, have your play instinct with vitality. Have it like life. If you find the supernumeraries do not do good pantomime work, put lines into their mouths. Have them rehearse with these lines spoken aloud at first, and later spoken silently, only the lips moving. This method will be found very useful. It helps many children to keep from appearing wooden. It also gives them a feeling that their part is worth while. The good work of the principal players is often rendered less effective by the lifeless quality of the supernumeraries. Make the supernumeraries feel that they are needed and they will respond. They are the accompaniment of the theme carried by the principals, and as necessary to the play as bass notes to a piece of music. Their action is necessary to the completeness of the play. And it is perhaps at this juncture that the amateur director should be warned of the pitfalls of dragging action. Just because some of the action of the supernumeraries happens to be amusing or picturesque, don’t give too much of it. Then it drags. Make it swift, clear, and pictorial. Do not let it encroach on the work of the main players. Do not over-emphasize it. If there is a humorous bit of by-play, do not repeat it. The second time it will fall flat.

Put the supernumeraries and principals through a rehearsal after you have rehearsed the supernumeraries alone, and note the difference. Never have the supernumeraries come to a rehearsal where they are not needed. Get on without them unless their presence is absolutely necessary: for many children find it discouraging to come when they have nothing to do.

Have a rehearsal for scene-setting and lighting, if your scene-setter and property man are chosen from the children themselves. Of course this scene-setting and lighting may not involve more than seeing that a drapery of curtains is right, and that chairs and tables can be put in their proper places without too much noise and confusion. If there is a good deal of furniture to be moved, assign certain pieces of it to certain young sceneshifters, and this will lessen any confusion. See if they cannot make as few motions as possible in coming and going and placing the various things that are needed. Have the head scene-shifter keep a list of what is needed, and have a duplicate yourself. Use this same idea with the properties. If lighting

involves seeing that a red bulb is turned on for a hearth-light effect, or simply the closing of shutters to darken the assembly-room, see that it is done promptly. Make someone responsible for it.

By the eighth rehearsal have the players go through the play entirely on their own responsibility with the director sitting in front as audience, quietly jotting down with pencil and paper any mistakes which need to be rectified. Do not interrupt the play with objections. Let it go straight ahead. Prompt the players when necessary. When the rehearsal is over, praise the good points; deal lightly with its faults, unless they are glaring ones. Suggest a few things that need remedying. Also, while the rehearsal is in progress, see if the tempo drags. Are the cues taken up too slowly? This is one of the greatest faults of amateur productions. If the cues are taken up too slowly, time your play while the players are acting it. Suppose it takes thirty-eight minutes when it should take thirty. To pull up the tempo, make them race through it at breakneck speed for a single time, not acting, just saying the lines, and getting through with it in twenty-six or twenty-seven minutes. This will often prove of first aid to injured tempo.

By your tenth or dress rehearsal of a one-act play, everything should be in readiness. Set the hour of rehearsal half an hour earlier than the time when you really expect to begin. Getting into costumes and the general flurry and excitement always cause delay. The dress rehearsal should, if possible, take place two days before the performance, so as to leave a margin for rest, or final touches. Criticise sharply at this performance all that needs criticising.

Now comes performance. If the director is to have a large or critical audience, and is nervous over the final result, do not let the players know ft. Encourage them. Praise them. Stimulate them to do their best, and then let the curtain rise. Never sit out in the audience. Always be behind the scenes, ready for an emergency. Play a part yourself, if necessary. See that absolute quiet is maintained behind the scenes, and that the prompter is ready, prompt-book in hand. Warn your players that if their lines raise laughter or applause, they are to wait until the laughter or applause has subsided, and then continue as if nothing had happened.

All this is for the one-act play. If the children are taking part in a threeor four-act play, first analyze the whole play, so they can have an idea of it in its entirety, its story, and its meaning. Then go back. Read the first act in rotation, learn its lines, and begin a roughed-in rehearsal. By the time the rehearsal of the first act is being roughed in, begin work on the second act, reading, learning its lines, and roughing it in, as has been the case with the first act. When it is learned, lessen the rehearsals of the first act, and put in

more time on the second act. As soon as your second act is being roughed out, swoop to your third act, and rehearse that twice as hard as you do your second act. A rough first act and an uneven second act are not as bad as a ragged, half-worked last act. It is better to begin less well and go up than to begin finely and come down. Put especial stress on the climax of your play. This must come out clearly, whatever else happens. But the whole thing should run as smoothly as possible. Catch the rhythm of it, if you can, though a feeling for rhythm in a play only comes with practice in producing. Be especially careful of the tempo of your last act. See that the play is not “spotty,” good and then less good throughout.

For an outdoor play have the children rehearse indoors first. Select your play site carefully. If possible, have it so that the sun does not shine directly in the faces of the players. After you have had two or three indoor rehearsals, take your play into the open. See that the voices carry clearly, and that the pantomime is effective. Step off to where the last row of the audience is to sit, and judge this for yourself. Remember that outdoor work can be broader than indoor work. As much detail is not necessary for it.

Remember that when you are producing a children’s play you are setting a standard. Whether that standard is bad or good will rest far more with you, the director, than the child-players whom you guide and control.

Schoolroom Productions

A word should be said here about schoolroom productions, where scenery or even curtains cannot usually be had, and where the money for properties and costumes is usually nil. A play-production in a school auditorium is one thing; but all schools do not have auditoriums and a schoolroom production calls for great ingenuity if it is to carry with an atmosphere of reality or fantasy. It need hardly be said that for the production of children’s plays as wide a use as possible should be made of the school auditorium. If the school is in the country or suburbs, it is often possible to give a play out of doors. But what of the city or small town school, with no chance of either auditorium or outdoor production? The best thing that can be done in this case is to utilize the material at hand in the most imaginative manner possible. Use the space in front of the desks for an indoor play or a play that does not require much action. For a play that must have space, in which there is action that must have free play, why not utilize the whole schoolroom?

A whole schoolroom as a stage was used in one of the public schools of New York City in a very wonderful way. The children, with the help of their teacher, had constructed a simple play from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The

Secret Garden, the story having been read aloud in the schoolroom before actual dramatization began. The scenes of the play were laid partly indoors and partly out of doors. The indoor scenes were acted in the space in front of the desks, which became a room, with the teacher’s desk and chair as part of its furniture, while the garden was represented by the desk space and the desks, the garden being the aisles between the desks! And how was the feeling of the garden given? For weeks beforehand the boys and girls had been making tissue-paper flowers. They were fastened to stems and branches and lay on the desks in front of the players. As soon as the characters in the play stepped from the house into the garden, the players at the desks slowly raised and waved the flowers that lay in front of them. They were mostly pink and white blossoms, with here and there a touch of blue and pale gold for the children had been reading what flowers would be likely to grow in an English garden.

And suddenly the everyday schoolroom was transformed, flooded with color and blossom. But more than this. The boys had been practicing bird calls! The moment the flowers were raised and the garden bloomed, there came a shrill, sweet chorus of blackbird whistles, robin notes, a lilt from the thrush, and a dozen other twitterings that the boys had learned from someone who visited a settlement in their neighborhood. The schoolroom was a garden for the time being! And the children whose only playground was the city streets were transported to “England in the springtime,” where hawthorn bloomed and robins sang! And there was utility as well as ideality, for later on the same flowers were used for a spring festival. The whole production of the play was a triumph of mind over matter. It represented a miracle that could be worked by any other teacher who uses her imagination, and induces her pupils to cultivate theirs. They had learned about English gardens, about flowers, and about birds. Somehow, as one thinks of it, is there not at once something valiant and pathetic in the thought of city sparrows, many of whom had never seen a garden, joyously imitating blither songbirds whose days are spent in free, sweet meadows, under blossoming boughs!

The Making of Programmes

The making of programmes requires care. Repeating an effect or an idea should be avoided. If three plays of the same period are used they should show varying aspects of that period. All things considered, in dealing with historical plays, it is wiser to put them chronologically.

Usually it is safest to put your shortest play first, and your longest play last. Try to place your most finished bit of work at the end, where it will be

twice as telling as at the beginning.

If you are producing two fairy plays, have them on different themes. If you are producing two plays at Christmas, have one modern and the other a costume play. There is a lift to costume plays for amateurs that modern plays do not have. A programme of one-act plays might consist of one folk play and one history play; or a modern play and a fairy play. A humorous play should come first and an idyllic play last in a programme where both are combined. If you are giving a curtain-raiser to a little two- or three-act fairy play have something modern or a nature play for your shorter piece.

It is a good idea for groups of settlements, or for different grades in a public school to study a one-act play or episode. If there are ten or twelve of such episodes a pageant can be formed at the end of the year. Have your play appropriate to its season. Do not have a play from which your audience can gain no pleasure. Do not expect them to like the classical at first sight. You will probably have to begin with something light or amusing.

What is Needed for the Furtherance of the Children’s Play Movement

A higher and more imaginative standard in plays throughout the country.

Greater care and knowledge used in play-production as regards simple scenery, costumes, and properties.

A wider use of the school auditorium as a benefit to the community.

The use of plays in country schools as related not only to the school, but to the life of the community.

The utilization of material at hand, such as open-air plays on the common or village green instead of in a stuffy schoolroom. The use of unoccupied barns for children’s community theaters in summer; of the town hall for the same purpose in winter.

A greater interchange between public school, social settlement, church guild, and social center. In the children’s play movement there is already discernible a certain waste of effort and of art. A children’s play is made to serve one purpose when it ought to serve ten. Usually a play is given once or twice in a settlement or school, and there is an end of it. What could be done is this: the play might be given in the school before an audience of children, then before an audience of fathers and mothers. Then it might be taken to the nearest settlement and repeated there, to the nearest church guild and repeated there. What about other places to which it might be giving joy? What about homes for the aged? What about orphan asylums? Children’s wards in hospitals? What about utilizing a hall in or near a

factory? The play movement is doing a great deal, but not half what it might. The children in district X go to the settlement in district X, and to the school in district X. Why not interchange with their plays?

The social settlements of Boston interchange plays and players with splendid results. All the thought and effort that go to the directing of a play might be made to serve a number of communities instead of one, and much social waste could be avoided. Interchange in the large cities would do a great deal toward drawing the vast conglomerate mass together.

It is a pity that a simple outdoor stage, such as is used in Palermo and other Italian cities, could not be utilized in tenement districts. It somewhat resembles the floats that were used in medieval miracle plays and pageants, only it is smaller, and has two screens for wings. This stage could be set up in a city street and plays could thus be acted out of doors.

All schools, settlements, and guilds should own their own stage equipment. The children should be taught to take delight in adding to the collection of scenery, properties, and costumes. The boys who take manual training can make the furniture. The girls can learn to make simple costumes, and to dye them.

CHAPTER 4 Play Analysis for Children

Two short plays and suggestions for their analysis are given in this chapter, so that teachers and amateur directors may use them as a basis for analyzing other plays for children. The first is a very simple dramatization of Browning’s Pied Piper for the lower grades and younger children, and the second, for the grammar grades and older children, is Christina Rossetti’s Pageant of Months. There are several reasons for this choice. One of them is that the Pied Piper and the Pageant of Months can be found in any public library, and so are easily available for teachers and students. Another reason is that in learning their lines the children will be absorbing the best literature. In the little dramatization of Browning’s poem only two of the lines are not his. All the rest have been taken directly from the poem. Moreover, these two selections represent two types of drama: the first is full of action and has a definite plot and climax, while the second is static and appeals through the beauty of its unusualness and the charm of its lines. It should be kept in mind that beauty is not always requisite for a play; but it is requisite for a pageant. Also the Pied Piper uses a great many characters, and has what might in a small way be termed “mass effect,” while the Pageant of Months depends on individual acting. In the Pied Piper the supernumeraries and what they do are as important to the action of the play as was the chorus to the old Greek drama. In the Pageant of Months there are no supernumeraries.

The Pied Piper

(A Play in One Act from Browning’s Poem)

CHARACTERS

THE PIED PIPER. THE MAYOR.

FIRST MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION.

SECOND MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION.

JUSTINA, a young girl.

ABRAHAM, an old man.

RUDOLF, a stranger.

BERTHA, his wife.

GRETCHEN, daughter of the Mayor.

HANS, a boy.

ELSE

AGATHE Market Women.

ERNESTINE

WILHELMINA

PLODDER

FRISKER

GREYCHIN

PRICKWHISKER Rats.

BROWN-EAR

GREY-EAR

BLACK-EAR

Townspeople of Hamlin. Other Market Women. Members of the Corporation. Children, Boys and Girls. Rats.

PLACE: Hamlin in Brunswick, 1376.

SCENE: A Market Place. There are trees in background, and at back and sides. Those at left are very thick, as are those at background. ELSE, WILHELMINA, AGATHE, and ERNESTINE enter. They are accompanied by JUSTINA and her grandmother, as well as by children, who help them set up their stalls and merchandise. Old ABRAHAM enters, leaning on his cane. The stalls are set up at right and left. There are none in background. While they are being set up the rats GREYCHIN, FRISKER, and PRICKWHISKER peep out from right. They are joined by other rats, and as soon as the stalls are all set up they rush out. They upset the stalls, overturn the cradle, and carry off a cheese in their flight. The women run and scream and there is general confusion. All the stalls are righted again, and the children go toward background and disappear. Then down from background come RUDOLF and BERTHA, and several customers who begin to buy at the stalls.

RUDOLF

What place is this?

ABRAHAM

’Tis Hameline Town in Brunswick, By famous Hanover City.

The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its walls on the southern side; [Points.

HOW

A pleasanter spot you’ve never spied

I’ll warrant, as through the land you go; But to see our townsfolk suffer so From vermin is a pity.

[Man and his wife look curious. Rats!

They fight the dogs and kill the cats.

AGATHE

And bite the babies in their cradles.

ELSE

And eat the cheeses out of the vats!

ERNESTINE

And lick the soup from the cooks’ own ladles!

WlLHELMINA

Split open the kegs of the salted sprats.

ABRAHAM

Make nests inside men’s Sunday hats!

ELSE

And even spoil the women’s chats By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats!

JUSTINA

(Looking off in background) Here come the people in a body From the town hall flocking.

ELSE

(To the Travelers) Oh, it’s clear our Mayor’s a noddy! And the corporation shocking!

[MAYOR and Corporation come down from background, with townspeople following and muttering amongst themselves.

AGATHE

To think we buy gowns lined with ermine

For dolts that can’t or won’t determine What’s best to rid us of our vermin!

[Women nod to confirm her shrill remark. There is a muttered “Ah-a-a! Ah-a-a!” in rising cadence from the townsfolk.

ERNESTINE

(To Mayor)

You hope, because you’re old and obese, To find in the furry civic robe, ease.

WlLHELMINA

(To Mayor and Corporation)

Rouse up, sirs, give your brains a racking To find the remedy we’re lacking! Or, sure as fate, we’ll send you packing! Let the Mayor break silence!

MAYOR

For a guilder my ermine gown I’d sell; I wish I were a mile hence!

It’s easy to bid one rack one’s brain

I’m sure my poor head aches again, I’ve scratched it so and all in vain.

Oh, for a trap! a trap! a trap!

[THE PIED PIPER enters unperceived from background. He plays two short squeaks on his pipe.

ELSE

Oh, did you hear a gentle tap?

MAYOR

Bless us! What’s that?

Anything like the sound of a rat

Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!

[All turn and perceive the PIPER, a slender figure with light loose hair and swarthy skin. He wears a cloak that is half red, half yellow. All look at him with the greatest possible interest.

ABRAHAM

It is as if my great grandsire

HOW TO PRODUCE

Starting up at the trump of Doom’s tone

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!

JUSTINA

(To a marketer)

Faith, he’s like a prince, though he wears no sable!

TOWNSFOLK

Look! Look!

THE PIED PIPER

Please your honors, I’m able

By means of a secret charm to draw All living creatures beneath the sun

That creep or swim or fly or run

After me as you never saw!

And chiefly I use my charm

On creatures that do people harm, The mole, the toad, the newt, the viper, And people call me the Pied Piper.

Yet, poor Piper that I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham

Last June from his huge swarm of gnats; I eased in Asia the Myzam

Of a monstrous brood of vampire bats; And as for what your brain bewilders

If I can rid your town of rats

Will you give me a thousand guilders?

MAYOR

One? Fifty thousand guilders there’ll be!

THE PIED PIPER

Come with me and you shall see!

[They troop out background, the MAYOR and PIPER leading. JUSTINA lingers to help her old grandmother, who must go slowly. While the grandmother is picking up her things JUSTINA has run to look at what was passing, and reports as she helps her grandmother toward background.

JUSTINA

Into the street the Piper stept

Smiling at first a little smile

As if he knew what magic slept

In his quiet pipe the while.

[From the distance, growing fainter, comes the sound of a pipe magically blown. Then, like a musical adept, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled

And blue and green his sharp eyes twinkled, Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled!

[JUSTINA and her grandmother exeunt, background. Just as they go FRISKER appears at left, down stage, and peers out between the stalls. Again the pipe is heard, this time jar, but very gradually coming nearer.

FRISKER

Leave your cheeses and pickletubs hollow! Hark where the pipe plays “Follow! Follow!”

PLODDER

(Joining Frisker)

At the first shrill notes of the pipe I hear a sound as of scraping tripe!

[He rushes away, background.

FRISKER

(Dancing)

And putting apples wondrous ripe Into a cider press’s gripe!

[He dances away, background.

GREYCHIN

(Appearing and smacking his lips) And moving away of pickletub boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve cupboards, And a dragging the corks of train oil flasks . . .

[He rushes out, background.

PRICKWHISKER

And a breaking the hoops of butter casks!

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

BROWN-EAR

And it sounds as if a voice

Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery

Breathes and calls out: “Oh, rats, rejoice! The world is grown to a great drysaltery!”

[BROWN-EAR followed by two other rats dashes out, background.

GREY-EAR

(Ecstatic)

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, dinner, supper, luncheon!

[He goes out, background.

BLACK-EAR

Leave your cellars and pickletubs hollow! Hark where the pipe cries “Follow! Follow!”

[BLACK-EAR followed by a dozen other rats dashes out, background. Just as they disappear, left background, from right background walks the PIED PIPER, and after him a troop of rats. He leads them round and round the stage, more and more rats joining him. Then suddenly he comes straight down the stage, wheels at the front and goes straight for background, the rats following. At left the townspeople begin to appear.

FIRST MEMBER OF CORPORATION

The Piper has turned along the street

To where the Weser rolls its waters, And has drowned the rats and their sons and daughters!

[He embraces the man nearest him in his joy.

MAYOR

(To Boy)

Go and tell the Hamline people

To ring the bells till they rock the steeple!

FIRST MEMBER OF CORPORATION

Aye, be swift and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes.

MAYOR

Consult with carpenters and builders

And in the town leave never a trace Of the Rats.

THE PIED PIPER

(Quietly appearing in their midst) First, please, my thousand guilders. [Dead silence.

THE TOWNSFOLK

(Whispering together) A thousand guilders! The Mayor looks blue! So does the Corporation, too.

FIRST MEMBER OF CORPORATION

(Aside to the Mayor) Our council dinners make rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Ver de Grave, Hock.

SECOND MEMBER OF CORPORATION

(Aside to the Mayor) And how this money would replenish Our cellar’s biggest butt with Rhenish!

MAYOR

(To the Pied Piper) Our business was done at the river’s brink: We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think. So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink From the duty of giving you something to drink, And a matter of money to put in your poke. But as for the guilders, what we spoke Of them, as you very well know, was a joke. Besides, our losses have made us thrifty. A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty.

THE PIED PIPER

No trifling. I can’t wait. Besides I’ve promised to visit by dinner time Bagdad and accept the prime Of the head cook’s pottage all he’s rich in,

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

For having left in the Caliph’s kitchen Of a nest of scorpions not one survivor. With him I proved no bargain driver. With you, don’t think I’ll bate a stiver. And folks who put me in a passion Will find me pipe in another fashion.

MAYOR

How, Piper! D’ye think I’ll brook Being treated worse than a cook? Insulted by a lazy ribald

With idle pipe and vesture pibald. Do you threaten us, fellow? Do your worst. Blow your pipe until you burst.

[The MAYOR strides angrily away. PIPER blows a few notes on his pipe. Children come scampering out, right and left and from background, and stand enraptured.

THE PIED PIPER

Come away to a joyous land

Joining the town, and just at hand.

[Children laugh and clap their hands, crowding about him. There are fruit trees, streams all silver blue: And flowers put forth a fairer hue And everything is strange and new, The sparrow there is the peacock’s peer, The dog outruns your fallow deer, The honey-bees have lost their stings, And horses are born with eagles’ wings!

[Children cry out delightedly. Their mothers touch them on their shoulders. But the children do not heed. They have eyes for no one but the PIED PIPER. He rises, blows a few notes, then pauses. You’ll find it lying South by West, If to Koppelberg hill your steps are addressed. Come away.

[The children start to follow. The Townsfolk cry out.

Stay! Stay!

TOWNSFOLK

THE PIED PIPER

Our business was done at the river’s brink. What’s gone can never come back, I think.

[To the Children. Come away!

TOWNSFOLK

Nay! Stay!

[THE PIED PIPER plays and the Children follow him out background.

MAYOR

We cannot follow where he has led. Our feet are suddenly made of lead.

[JUSTINA is near the trees in background. She speaks from there.

JUSTINA

The Piper has turned to the High Street; ‘Tis where the Weser rolls its waters Right in the way of your sons and daughters!

TOWNSFOLK

Ah!

JUSTINA

Now he has turned from South to West And to Koppelberg hill his steps are addressed.

MAYOR

He can never cross that mighty top!

ELSE

He’ll be forced to let the piping drop!

WILHELMINA

And we shall see the children stop.

JUSTINA

No! No! They have reached the mountain’s side. A wondrous portal has opened wide!

As if a cavern were suddenly hollow

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

The piper plays and the children follow. They all are in, to the very last, And the door in the mountain side shut fast!

[At this last word the people regain their power of moving.

MAYOR

Send East, send West, send North, send South, And offer the Piper by word of mouth Wherever it is man’s lot to find him Silver and gold to his heart’s content, If he’ll only return the way he went, And bring the children behind him.

WlLHELMINA

Alas! Alas! ‘Tis a lost endeavor! The Piper and children have gone forever!

[As the people turn sadly and go away, old ABRAHAM stands for a moment like one speaking the Epilogue and says:

ABRAHAM

So, Audience, let you and me be wipers Of scores out with all men especially Pipers.

END OF PLAY

Discuss the kind of person each character is, and his or her relation to the play, when necessary.

Evidently the play begins in a square, so we can give the play indoors in winter or outdoors in summer. In the summer have a place with grass and trees, or screens built of branches. In the winter, green hangings and pine trees. Or a city street. (See chapter on Scenery.) And then there would be market stalls. How could they be made? Just ordinary wooden boxes could be made to do, and on them put cheese and butter boxes. Then there would be apples, and some bright colored vegetables like carrots, and perhaps a small keg of herring. What other things would there be? Wouldn’t covering a round wooden butter-box or even a small collar-box with orange-yellow tissue paper make it look like a huge cheese? And how would a cradle be made? (See Properties.) So much for the scene-setting. Now for the costumes?

What kind of clothes would they wear in the fourteenth century? Who

can tell? What was the style of their dress? They wove and spun their own material, did they not? What would these materials be? Didn’t the children wear high-waisted little dresses, with straight skirts and white muslin caps or coifs? What did the Mayor wear? Read the text. Who gave him this ermine cloak? How shall we make it? (See chapter on Costuming.) The Piper’s costume is described, his cloak was half red and half yellow. The other people must have worn clothes of a solid color or they wouldn’t have been so surprised at his.

Now the Rats. What will they wear? Were they all in black? Read the text, and see what their names are. That will help you decide. Suppose they use muslin for their costumes, and have masks of the same color for their faces, and caps with ears. And whiskers, and tails.

Now the play has begun and the people have come in. How will Abraham walk? Why? What will Justina do when the rats run in and her old grandmother cannot get away? Won’t she try and shield her grandmother, half bending over her? It would seem so. How will the travelers look? Will they have packs on their backs? How will they act when they hear about the rats? Won’t they want to run away? Ah, but word has come that the Mayor is coming. The travelers will want to stay and see what the man who rules this rat-haunted town looks like.

And how does the Mayor act? What sort of a man is he? Read the text. He is a little sorry for himself, isn’t he? The people are not glad to see him, evidently. How would he look as he came toward them? Wouldn’t he be looking shiftily from right to left? And when they menace him wouldn’t he hold a cloak in front of his face? And what makes him lower it? The sound of a tap. Only it wasn’t a tap. It was music. And now we behold the Pied Piper. What does Pied mean? Do the people feel that this man is strange? What does old Abraham say? Does the Piper’s speech make him seem like one of themselves, or stranger still? How could he go to so many far-off countries in a short space of time? Do you think he flew on his magic cloak? Did you ever hear that red was the color for magicians to wear? It was the hue of magic. But the Piper’s cloak is half red only. Ah, maybe that means he is half magic and half human. What sort of a man do you think he is? He tells about himself quite frankly, doesn’t he? Where he has been, what he has done, and what he can do. He comes to the point at once. Would you say he was honest, and trustworthy?

What does the Mayor say?

And what does the Piper say to that? Oh, he will show them. He won’t just talk about it. What sort of a man does that make him out to be? Now the people have all followed the Piper off the scene, except Justina and her

grandmother. And Justina cannot help looking to see what is happening! And what does she see? It would seem that the Piper is stranger than ever! And what do we hear? The first notes of his piping.

Now Justina and her grandmother have gone, and what has happened? What the Piper said has come true! The rats are coming out of their holes. What seems to be the chief characteristic of the rats from their conversation? They are gluttons. Isn’t that why we despise them so?

Back comes the Piper. The rats have followed him away. And now the people gather excitedly to tell each other the news. Is their first thought to thank or to praise the Piper? Do they seem to be grateful? What do they say? And then the Piper comes back for his pay. And what does he say? He asks for his money. This is one of the really exciting moments in the play. Will the Mayor give it or won’t he? Do you think the Piper doubts that he will get it? Honest people expect others to be like themselves, do they not? The Mayor takes counsel with his two followers from the Corporation. What sort of men are they? Read the text. You can judge them by what they say. What do the people do? Do they urge the Mayor to pay at once? Is the Piper angry? What does he say? Read the text.

What does the Mayor reply?

You will notice that now the Piper does what is characteristic of him. He does not talk. He acts. What does he do? Do you think that his telling the children a story makes him seem even more wonderful to them? Why?

What do the people do when they see the children following the Piper?

Does anyone think of calling the Piper back and offering him the money?

Why were the townsfolk unable to move their feet, do you think? What was it held them? Was it a spell? Why should it begin just as the children were leaving, and stop when the children entered the mountain, and the door was closed?

What did the Mayor do? What sort of a man does this make him out to be? Was he fit to be Mayor? Were any of the townspeople any fitter?

How do you suppose they knew that the children were gone forever? Did they feel it in their guilty hearts? What does the end of the play say about keeping promises? What else does the play teach? Doesn’t it teach that if all the people of a town or a nation love gold too much that they may lose something better than gold? The children may now begin to learn the lines of the play by heart.

For an analysis of The Pageant of Months first read the Pageant aloud, and note that The Pageant of Months cannot rightly be termed a play. It has no climax or culminating point, and tells no definite story. It is rather a

series of pictures and of moods. It does not hold one between fear and hope. It arouses only gentle expectation. It cannot be termed “dramatic”: in the usual sense of the word. But it does interest us through its sheer beauty; and it gives us an enlivened sense of the change and color of the year. This is its central theme, or idea.

If The Pageant of Months is to be given by a cast of boys and girls, divide them into the groups indicated in the Pageant. Since the months have no particular sex, changes can be made if the cast has more boys than girls, or vice versa.

Suppose the play has been read around by the class. What are you going to do for your scene-setting? What the scene-set really requires is a divided stage, with the wall of the cottage running down the center. One half of the stage will thus be the interior of the cottage, and one half will be the cottage’s open grounds. This is impossible except for expensive stage equipment. Therefore, the scene must be one thing or the other. Which shall it be? A woodland outdoor scene, or an indoor scene? Which can be done best? Read the text. The Pageant begins with a suggestion of cold weather. This could not be suggested in a green garden or wood. Clearly the scene must be laid indoors. Let it be set in the large, “comfortable cottage” that the directions call for.

There would be an open hearth at one end and a handsomely made settle beside it, and a fur rug on the bare floor. Bare floors must be used because there is to be a dance at the end. The directions call for it.

“A table on which the breakfast things have been left standing,” the directions say. But that means January’s breakfast, not such a breakfast as mortals eat coffee and eggs and bacon. January was an immortal and would, therefore, eat such things as immortals delight in. There would be a very white loaf, and perhaps some golden honey made by wild bees such honey as you read of in Greek mythology. A bowl of lump sugar that looks like frost-work. A tall silver tankard or pitcher filled with ambrosia. And fruit What about golden apples of Hesperides? And then all the fairy tales and poetry books talk about “jeweled fruits.” Isn’t it possible that January could have some of those? And what would they be like? Apples that looked like huge rubies, and oranges of gold. But where shall such fruits be found? Have you never seen them growing? Think. Why, they grow on Christmas trees! And they are called Christmas decorations. Have two platters, or bowls, heaped high with them. And would the tablecloth be like other tablecloths? Perhaps it would be a strip of purple, edged with gold, or of scarlet, edged with silver. And what would the dishes be? Gold and silver also. (See chapter on Properties.)

What of the open fire? It is all right to have it at the first when January is there. But we cannot have it when July and August are there. What shall be done? When May enters, can she not put a green branch over it? And September, the month of passing leaves, can take it off again. Thus it will be a symbol. The poets of the Far East used to speak of “the fire of Spring,” and sometimes you find it alluded to in Bohemian legends. It will be a gay scarlet and yellow and orange tissue-paper fire, of course, with a touch of gray for ashes. The tree branch can be real, or be made by one of the players. And since January’s house is not like other houses, there might be an alcove at the other end of the room from the fire, with green hangings the color of forest trees. When these hangings are parted you can see that there are other green hangings in the alcove, and a pine tree or two standing against them. (You can manage without the pine trees, if you must.) It will seem as if January would step into the out-of-doors at a moment’s notice, if he wanted to. If you cannot afford such a thing as a cottage set, then hang the whole scene with brown or green curtains, and pretend the rest. In this case you cannot have a hearth, but you can have a brazier. (See directions for making one under Properties.)

The Pageant calls for lambs. Of course you cannot have them. What should be done? Let us read the lines. February says “Oh, you, you little wonder, come, come in.” One has no right to change the words of an author, but perhaps not even Christina Rossetti herself would object to having this word changed to ‘go.’ That would mean that the fold was just outside the door, and the lambs and sheep were going to it. The word ‘go’ instead of ‘come’ could be used through the rest of the lines. A little later the directions say that February retires into the background. That is where the curtained alcove comes in. February can go into that and disappear from view. Wherever the directions say that the characters go out or disappear from view, they can retire into this alcove. Thus the problem will be solved.

Now about the characters themselves. What sort of a person is January? Is he not dignified and stately? And surely kind, for he stirs the fire, hoping that whoever is passing through the snow will have a light. And next to people his second thought is for animals. And what will January wear? Such robes as you see in Greek mythology, or in the pictures of symbolic characters that Dante Rossetti and his friend Burne-Jones loved to paint. Study these pictures. For color, his robe should be white. And is he old or young?

Now the robins come in. They are small, so children can play them. How will they be dressed? What will their actions be? Will they hop like robins and cock their heads on one side? Where will you find how to make their costumes? Look at the costumes in The Bird Masque by Percy

MacKaye, and that will help you. The directions say that they pick up crumbs and sugar. Of course they can’t stoop down to the floor. January must put the sugar on the edge of the table.

Now comes February. Since it may be impossible to have a glass on the window-sill, suppose you have a clear glass bowl on the table where the wondrous fruits are. Now the robins go into the alcove.

How will you make the twittering of birds for April? Aren’t there toys that make sounds just like birds? Could not two or three play at once? There is no music for April’s song. Could it not be recited to music? How would Mendelssohn’s Spring Song do?

What talk of birds and flowers there is when May arrives! May ought to be able to tell all about them. What do they look like, and where do they grow?

June can fall asleep on the settle, in front of the fire that is now covered with a bough. “Laburnam” and “the arbor” can be the curtained alcove. When December comes in he might shake off snow from his sleeves, like silver powder.

All the characters have now been discussed and costumed, we will suppose. The end of the Pageant is reached. November and December are on the scene. The fire is burning. December is “weaving a garland.” How would it be to have it a Christmas wreath? Then it could be hung up, and as December was hanging it, the other characters could come in.

Now all join in a dance. “A stately measure,” the directions say. What shall it be? How would Dvorak’s Humoresque do?

If people in the audience like the Pageant very much as no doubt they will if the parts are well done the dance can be repeated. It can either be the same dance or a different one. And suppose there are one or two encores? Wouldn’t it be pretty to have the little robins take the first with their brisk “hop, hop, hop,” and then the Months the second?

CHAPTER 5

Costumes: What to Select and What to Avoid

Correct and artistic costuming for children’s plays involves a knowledge of historical accuracy, color, and material.

Study the best costume books, and histories and fairy tales illustrated by well-known artists. See if the author of the play has not given directions which you can follow.

Historical accuracy is a rock on which many amateur directors come to grief: they are not sure of their centuries. Headgear and footwear are apt to be of one century and costumes of another.

Select your costumes with reference to your background, so there will be no color clash. Use scarlet and pink very sparingly. They put other colors out of countenance. Do not costume all your characters in bright shades. It makes the scene confusing to the eye. And unless you are producing an operetta, do not costume your peasants all alike, and all in the same colors. Take common sense as your guide. Do not put little peasant girls into red velvet skirts or woodcutters into satin jackets. Let them wear the plain, rough materials that they would naturally have. Strife to have your costumes appropriate. Twenty years ago fairies were dressed in short, stiff white skirts, and tight star-spangled bodices; but to-day we know that there is nothing stiff or starchy about a fairy. They are costumed in soft, clinging materials suggesting the twilight of deep woods, the glamour of mist and moonshine. Do not put weary travelers, explorers, or pioneers into spickand-span raiment. Their garments should show the dust and soil of travel. See that the footgear of all the players in one scene belongs to the same period. See that your fairies and spirits wear sandals, not white, high-heeled slippers or high-heeled slippers of any color.

One well-known English pageant master posted this sign where it could be read by all groups of children taking part in the pageant: “Keep up your stockings. Have your footgear all alike.” This might also be posted by the director of children’s plays!

Discuss the costumes with the child-players who are to wear them. It is perfectly possible for a costume to have historical value, to be in harmony with its background, and yet have emotional value as well. A sinister figure

might be all in black, with touches of scarlet; innocency in white; while a pale, tender green, like the first touch of spring, would be for something meant to suggest youth and hope. Woodsy creatures would wear wood colors, and so forth. Fairies of the dawn would be in dawn color; twilight elves would be in gray, the color of the twilight. A morality play recently produced by a cast of amateur players had a background of deep cream color: the play was laid in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The century in which the play was laid naturally decided the lines of the costumes; but to the youthful players themselves were left the deciding of the color scheme, aided always by suggestions from the director. “Love,” said one child, “should wear white, because the thoughts of Love are always pure and fair.” This decided that all the colors must be symbolical. Wisdom, by common consent, was attired in deep purple, a royal color; while another character, Grumble, must be all in black, since grumbling suggested darkness. “And Envy should wear green,” cried another, “because people are said to be green with envy.” What color should Vanity wear? This was a difficult question to decide. Pink, blue, and yellow were all discarded. “I think,” said one dark-eyed girl, “that Vanity should wear a little of every color.” Thus an imitation brocade was decided on for Vanity. This shows how symbolic costumes can be designed.

See that the players wear their hair in a mode that corresponds to their costumes. Do not put modern head-dressing and ancient costumes together. Study authentic pictures. The Greek women or girls wore their hair bound in a chaplet. In Saxon times they wore it in two long heavy braids. In the Middle Ages girls and women wore their hair tucked beneath a cap or coif. In the eighteenth century it was pompadoured and powdered. Peasants and Indian maidens would naturally wear their hair in two braids. Woodland spirits and little dryads would naturally wear their hair flying. Unless the play is laid in the present time, or in the days of the Civil War, never put hair ribbons on the children. Above all, never, never put them on spirits, fairies, court ladies, Greek maidens, Puritans, Indians, or Colonials.

Do not mix the costumes of two centuries. Unless otherwise indicated keep the lines of the costumes soft and flowing. Do not bunch the costumes of fairies and spirits with too many petticoats.

Make the simple costumes yourself. They will have better material, lines, and color than those obtainable from costumers. If you wish to, dye them the desired shades, although the color range of what you can buy is now much larger than formerly.

For materials, the simplest weaves will do as well as the most ornate.

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

Use cheesecloth for thin material, such as fairy dresses and Greek robes. Use cambric and silesia to simulate satin, cotton crepon or silk crepon, where a softer and heavier material than cheese-cloth is needed. Use silkoline for flowered silk. Use burlap for rough peasant suits or tunics; hopsacking for others. White cotton-batting with black tails basted on it makes ermine. For medieval costumes the pictures in illustrated editions of Guizot’s Histories of France and England will be found invaluable. Also Boutet de Monvel’s Jeanne D’Arc, and good illustrated editions of Pilgrim’s Progress contain pictures of costumes that can be easily copied. For Grecian, mythological, and neo-Grecian costumes The Wonder Book by Hawthorne, with illustrations by Walter Crane, has some very charming examples. For different periods of American costume try Egglestons Illustrated History of the United States, and Costume in America by Elizabeth McClelland. All the books of fairy tales edited by Andrew Lang have delightful fairy costumes in them. For costumes of the Holy Land see The Castle of Zion by George Hodges, with illustrations. The Copley Prints of The Holy Grail, by Abbey, will suggest costumes for the court of Arthur and his Knights. The Arabian Nights, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, has imaginative ideas for Arabian costumes.

CHAPTER 6

Scenery and How to Make It

Next in importance to selecting the cast of a children’s play is the selecting of its scenery. The day of ornate, cluttered scenery has gone by, both for the adult and the children’s theater. Hangings are now used where wood sets and papier-mache effects once held sway. Line and color and light are now used to convey effect. The audience is credited with a little imagination. Suggestion is used instead of actuality.

Adequate plays for children usually contain ample directions for costume setting, and the wise director will follow them. The atmosphere of a play is at least half created by its scene-setting. Avoid the tawdry and meaningless as you would a pestilence.

Strive for simplicity of effect. Dark-green hangings with a brown floorcloth, and some make-believe tree-trunks, suggest a wood. One needs no more scenery than that to convey the heart of a forest. See to it that when the curtains part at the entrance of a character that there are other green curtains behind them, so as to keep the deep forest effect. Another way of suggesting a wood is to fasten dozens of real tree branches to green or brown curtains. Or at the Christmas season, pine trees may suggest the forest primeval. The Educational Dramatic League (New York) has instituted high screens draped with whatever colors are needed. The framework of the screens is not unlike the wooden “clothes-horses” used for drying clothes, only they are made of iron and stand more securely. For draping such screens, whether the woodwork is iron or wood, use felt, canton flannel, crepon, or paper muslin, according to the scene you wish to convey. Crape paper may also be used, but it is rather perishable.

Dark forest-green hangings are absolutely invaluable. If only one set of hangings can be afforded, have them of this color. And denim is a good serviceable material. They can be a wood in one scene, and with a flat brown border basted to the other side they can suggest a Puritan interior. With a rose-flower cretonne border basted to them they can become a Colonial room. With a pale-blue border, they are a palace. With a white Grecian border, they represent a room in a Grecian home. To have them suggest the interior of a peasant home is, naturally, the most difficult of all,

because the scene of a rude interior with a hearth is usually meant to be conveyed. For this sort of a scene have the furniture low, a low bench or two, and a somewhat squat table. Have as little furniture as possible. You wish merely to suggest the scene. Have a tallow dip for a light, and for a hearth not a hearth at all! Have a brazier with charcoal burning, as is often customary in some of the European peasant homes. This can be made by painting a tripod washstand black, and setting a candle deep in it, or burning a little red powder to give a glow. One has always to be careful of fire; but to burn a candle or powder in a bowl is generally safe. Stand the tripod where it is least likely to be upset. The characters who enter can warm their hands at it as at a hearth. Of course, if it can be had, a red electric bulb set in the bowl, or a red spot-light turned on it is the best of all.

Never mix fainted and curtain scenery. This is never done by the artists of the stage. Take the Winthrop Ames production of Snow White for a model. There, scenes with their background of curtains alternated with painted scenes. The two were never used together. Rhinehardt, a man who has made the Gordon Craig ideas the basis of his stage art, procures wonderful effects by the use of draped interiors. He never mixes painted and draped scenery. These men are, of course, artists of the adult stage; but what they do can be followed in a small way for the children’s stage. Some suggestions follow. They are designs which can be followed at the least possible expense.

FOR A PALACE. Hangings of pale blue, or deep vivid blue. A throne chair of white and gold, set on a raised dais, covered with blue. But suppose a throne chair cannot be had? Then a box dais, and on it set firmly an armchair. Drape or cover this with pale-blue cambric, glazed side outward, to represent satin. Place over the back of it cloth of gold that is made by gilding burlap with radiator bronze; or a spangled scarf placed straight across the back will make a fine glitter.

A GARDEN. The same method of arrangement as for a wood or forest, with vines of paper flowers that can be bought very cheaply by the yard from the Dennison Tissue Paper Co. These vines are fastened to the curtains as if on a trellis. A little confetti laid beneath them gives the effect of fallen blossoms.

A DUNGEON. Black hangings, and black or pine furniture. A black or gray floor-cloth.

A STREET SCENE. This is the most difficult to convey by means of curtains, but it can be done. Remember that you are to suggest a street scene only. Have gray unglazed cambric hangings, with the outlines of doors and quaintly shaped windows put on life-size by stitching outlines of black cambric to the gray curtains. It is better to stitch them than to paint them,

SCENERY AND HOW TO MAKE IT

for cloth that shows up paint is really rather expensive. The effect is to suggest a street, and as this kind of scenery belongs to no particular period it can be used from the tenth to the seventeenth century. It can also be used to suggest modern scenes in quaint European villages such as little out-ofthe-way French, German, Scandinavian, or Russian towns. For a modern street scene it is, of course, quite inappropriate.

A PEASANT’S HOME. As has been suggested, a brazier, benches, and a table. Brown hangings, and a brown floor-cloth if possible. If not, green will do.

AN EASTERN PALACE. Yellow curtains, with a throne covered in either scarlet or orange.

THE DROP-CURTAIN. For a drop-curtain, dark green is to be preferred above all other colors. Next to this dark brown. It must be of thick material, denim or felt. Take dark blue or dark red if you cannot get green or brown. Green is best because it can be used to advantage in forest scenes after it is worn out as a curtain. Or brown curtains can be used when half worn out for a floor-cloth for forest scenes.

The laws of certain cities prohibit the use of curtains in schools, on account of the fear of fire. Other schools cannot afford a curtain large enough for their auditorium. This makes things very awkward for plays demanding a change of scene. Of course the lights can be turned off in some schools, and the scenery changed in semi-darkness; but there are schools where even this advantage cannot be had. For those who find themselves in a curtain predicament the following is suggested. Have six scenery pages, boys or girls as nearly of one height as possible. Let them wear a dark color, or colors, and be sure their shoes and stockings are black. Have couchcovers, portieres, or strips of cloth fastened to curtain rods. Let the pages pass quickly to the front of the stage as soon as the scene closes, holding these improvised screens between changing scene and audience till the scenery is moved, thus:

For a church scene have dark-colored hangings. An offertory table with a long straight centerpiece of white, candles at either end, and in the center. Be careful of your stage furnishing. It can do much to make or mar a play. See that your chairs and table are of the period described in the text.

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

If your play is Greek, study the lines of Greek benches or seats. You can have them made very inexpensively, and painted white. Never, under any circumstances, use modern furniture in Greek plays.

For your interior scenes, if your play is laid in early Saxon times, in the days of Robin Hood, or the Pilgrim Fathers, in fact in any century up to the eighteenth, you are safe in using heavy black mission furniture with upright chairs and plain tables. The mission furniture may not fit the period in detail, but it is unobtrusive, has simple lines and the massiveness of the early furniture. Never use bright-colored furniture unless so directed in the text of the play.

Use ornaments very sparingly, unless called for. They clutter your scene. Remember that tablecloths, white or silken, were not in general use till the eighteenth century. Even then they were used for meals, not for the tables in drawing-rooms or libraries. These were polished and bare. Do not use “tidies” or “throws” unless your scene is laid in America at the time of the Civil War, or unless you wish to suggest an old-fashioned farmhouse interior. Do not use cushions of variegated colors unless your scene is Japanese. Too many bright and varied colors distract the eye. Use dim, quiet colors. In fact, have the same taste in your scenes that you would in household decoration. Choose your accessories with reference to the color of your background. Try to work out your scene-setting in one or two quiet colors. It is the actors, not the scene, that you wish to bring before the eye of the audience.

Have as little furniture on the stage as possible. Use a floor-cloth, or if this is not obtainable, a bare floor, with or without a fur rug. Do not put a leopard skin in the home of a Danish peasant, as one amateur producer did. Beware how you use Persian rugs. Few amateur plays are laid in Persia. Above all, beware of brightly-colored strips of carpet, unless you wish your scene to be comic or grotesque.

An eighteenth-century interior may be light in color. Have spindlelegged furniture, cretonne hangings, and soft-colored cushions. With this century came in lacquered tables and trays.

Never, unless your scene-setting actually requires it, set a scene in a pink or red room. It will kill the color of most of your costumes. “Ah!” cries some unfortunate producer, “what if you are in a little town where the only interior scene is red? What are you going to do?” In this case use black or dark furniture, and try to offset it. If you are in a place where you must choose between a red dining-room set, or a “parlor” set ornate with gold and bright wall-paper, when what you need is the interior of a peasant’s home, turn your scenery inside out. The white back and the wooden props

SCENERY AND HOW TO MAKE IT

will look like a crude, whitewashed home. If the back is only a little yellowish, or dirty, you are saved. If you are allowed to tack brown wall-paper (plain) to the back of the set, you can make an excellent peasant hut out of it, or an interior that will do for a Puritan living-room, or eighteenth-century kitchen.

See that the color of your hangings or scenery are the same in gaslight and in daylight. Artificial light has a way of making green look blue and blue look green. Be especially careful to see that the dark green of your forest scene is not black at night. “Look before you leap,” might be transposed to “Look before you buy.” Take care of your scenery and details, and much of your play will take care of itself.

For scenery study the pictures in Guizot’s France, and the Jeanne D’Arc pictures by Boutet de Monvel; also the interiors shown in illustrated editions of Pilgrim’s Progress. For the interior of foreign peasant homes, and scraps of scenery, try Little Pilgrimages Amongst English Inns, by Josephine Tozier; Little Pilgrimages Amongst French Inns, by Charles Gibson. Some of the backgrounds in the illustrated editions of Lang’s Fairy-tales. Also Little Pilgrimages Amongst Bavarian Inns, by Frank R. Fraprie.

CHAPTER 7 Properties and How to Make Them

Use care in the selection of your properties. Study your text. Avoid anachronisms. Do not use muskets and pipes in a scene that is laid before muskets were invented and tobacco discovered. Do not use modern lamps to light a medieval scene. Do not use modern musical instruments in a scene that is laid in Grecian or medieval times. These are some of the average mistakes. Remember that penholders and pens are a modern invention. Use quill pens and sand for plays whose scenes are laid before the early nineteenth century. Do not use clocks in Greek or early Saxon scenes. If your characters are writing or sending letters in the times when parchment was used, have the paper yellowed to look like parchment. Do not have a modern fireplace in a peasant’s home where the hearth would naturally be built of stone. Do not use modern dishes in medieval scenes. Buy paper plates and cover them with colored tissue paper, or paint them till they resemble the kind of platters you need. Brown will represent earthenware. Gold and silver for fairy palaces can be made by gilding them or covering them with gold paper. Remember that forks and spoons were not in popular use in the days of Robin Hood. Fingers and knives did the required work. “The hearth was used for cooking. Beware of modern-looking cooking utensils in fairy, Puritan, or Colonial scenes. “Gadzooks” and modern coffee-pots do not go together. Beware of modern frying-pans for hearth-stone scenes. Use iron skillets instead. A kettle for these scenes is always permissible; but if it is a peasant scene, see that it is not the too-shining brass of the tea-kettle of the afternoon tea-table! Remember that coal fires are modern. If you are having a fairy-peasant scene use wood instead. Use braziers where the scenes require it. They are always effective, and can be made by blacking a tripod washbowl, and lighting a little red-fire powder in it, or some joss-sticks which will give a thin blue smoke. Or a red electric bulb can be used in it, if there is no spot-light.

Be careful of your lighting. The Greeks had torches when they wanted a bright light, and small, bowl-shaped lamps with a wick and oil for smaller illuminations. Gold cardboard torches from which stream slashed strips of flame-colored tissue paper is a safe substitute. The Saxons and early English

AND HOW TO MAKE THEM

had rush-lights and bowl-lamps. A bowl that looks like earthen-ware, with the stub of a candle in it, will do. In medieval times swinging lamps and candles were for the rich; while the humble were content with tallow dips only.

Don’t use the spinning-wheel before the spinning-wheel was invented, just because it is decorative. Don’t use a modern glass “tumbler” for your doublet-and-hose hero to drink from. A cheap glass goblet covered with gold paper will look like a gold goblet.

If possible have your youthful players make their own properties. Take, for instance, a fallen tree-trunk, or a log for a forest scene. It can be made by fastening together two small vinegar barrels, and covering them with green and brown burlap to represent bark and moss. Or it can be covered with brown burlap and gray lichen real lichen fastened to it with strong glue. Such a stage property as this can be used again and again. And the boy who went to the fields or the outlying suburb to get the moss may he not gain something of nature’s secrets that he had not known before? And may not the eager quest bring him hours of entire happiness? A seventeenth-century broom can be made by tying an armful of hazel or willow switches to an old broom-handle. The browner and sturdier these twigs are the better. This broom material can be gathered at the same time as the moss.

Stimulate initiative and invention wherever possible. A round brown collar-box is only a collar-box till you use it for an earthen bowl. A white cardboard shoe-box is cut down a little, covered with black tissue paper, has a little yellow pane inserted in each side, and a curtain ring for a handle. Behold a lantern for a Yankee Minute Man, or Paul Revere, or anyone else who wants to use it! Remarkable stage furniture can be made from wooden boxes of all sizes. A packing-case makes a dais. Several boxes nailed together and stained brown will make a peasant’s cupboard. Three boxes nailed together like this will make a hearth. If it is to be a medieval or fairy-tale hearth, cover it with cheap gray cambric, bulked to look like stone, and marked like stone with splotches of white and brown chalk. Be sure you turn the unglazed side of the cambric outward. Use chalk because paint does not show up well on cambric. A brick fireplace for a modern scene can be made in the same way, covering the boxes with brick chimney paper that can be bought at Dennison’s Tissue Paper Co., Boston, Chicago, or New York. One of their catalogues will prove invaluable to directors living in the country. A narrow box on rockers, stained brown, becomes a Puritan or eighteenth-century cradle. Gilded and hooded, it is the cradle of a royal princess. Couch-seats can be made from boxes, only be sure that they are secure.

Books which contain pictures from which properties can be copied are:

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

The illustrated edition of Guizot’s France, the pictures in Boutet de Monvel’s Jeanne D’Arc, some of the castle and peasant interiors in the Fairy Books edited by Andrew Lang. Also The Old Furniture Book, by N. Hudson Moore, and Chats on Old Furniture, by Arthur Hayden. Also Furniture of the Olden Time, by Frances Clay Morse. Home Life in Colonial Days, by Alice Morse Earl. Social Life Under the Georges, by Esther Singleton. For styles in dishes see By-Paths in Collecting, by Virginia Robie. (This illustrates mostly eighteenth-century dishes.) Chats on English Earthenware, by Arthur Hayden. The Old China Book, by N. Hudson Moore.

CHAPTER 8 Music and Dances

The music and dances which sometimes are used in children’s plays are usually indicated in the text, but there are occasions when dramatic directors or teachers find themselves in need of further help. A good rule for dances is to know the dates when they were invented, and when they proved most popular. Do not have your characters dancing a minuet in hoop-skirts, as one amateur producer was known to do. The Galliard, the Couranto, and the Levanto came in with the Masque in England, the Morris Dances even earlier. The Minuet and Pavane were of French origin. In music try to avoid anachronisms. If your play is laid in Shakespeare’s time, use the old melodies “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” etc. Do not use patriotic airs before those airs were written. For instance, “The StarSpangled Banner” should not be used in Colonial scenes. Do not use Civil War songs in Colonial times, as has been blandly clone by some who felt they had no time to look the others up. Get a good musical dictionary and it will help you greatly. Try to have your music, either overture, entr’acte, or dance, give the feeling of a scene. Always begin your rehearsals with the same music you will use throughout. It is fatal to change. If you are to rehearse with a piano first, and have an orchestra for your play, or a trio, see at the beginning that what is arranged for piano is also arranged for orchestra, and that all the parts for the orchestra are on hand. If they are sent for at the last minute the music store may be out of them, there will be another delay, and chaos will be the result.

Avoid cheap and trashy music. It will pull down the whole effect of your play. If you feel you must use a modern march or waltz, take one whose title is not well known even if the waltz prove a little less catchy than the one in mind. For instance, if your fairies enter to “The Merry Widow Waltz,” or your dwarfs march in to “Hands Across the Sea” you have called up an entirely different effect from the one you wished to produce, and spoiled your play. Take less well-known compositions if you will use that type of music. But it is well to avoid it altogether, and in its place substitute the compositions of Dvorak, MacDowell, Gilbert, Nevin, Grieg, and Mendelssohn.

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

For dances, in giving diagrams and examining their technique, the following books will be found valuable:

The Dance: Its History. By Troy and Margaret Kinney.

The Guild of Play Books. Edited by Curwen, London. (Dances and Music.)

The Folk Dance Book. By C. Ward Crampton. (Dances and Music.)

Swedish Folk Dances. By Nils W. Bergquist. (Music and Dances.)

Folk Dances and Singing Games. By Elizabeth Burchenal. (Music and Songs.)

The Gilbert Dances, edited by Susan Hoffman Gilman, and published by Schirmer, will be found good for minuets, gavottes, and pavanes.

For simple plays given in the lower grades, for very little children, the following books have little musical motifs and dances that are easy and available.

School Dances, by Melvin Ballou Gilbert. (With full directions.) Edited by Susan Hoffman Gilman. There are eighteen dances in this book and their titles will at once suggest the kind of play they should be used for. Grade One, Grade Two, and Grade Three are the book’s subdivisions, and these numbers fit the grades of the public school.

Legends of the Red Men, by Harvey Worthington Loomis, are good for Indian dances, and lend themselves also to Indian ceremonial and pantomime.

Dramatic Games and Dances, by Caroline Crawford, are good for younger children in everyday plays.

For fairy dances use Dvorak’s Humoresque and Nevin’s Narcissus, and the Pizzicato Polka from the Ballet Sylvia. The Folk Dances have already been indicated. In the Hall of the Mountain King, by Grieg, from The Peter Gynt Suite, is splendid for gnomes, and goblin dances or entrances. Edward German’s Suite of Henry Eighth Dances are good for medieval plays, and for morality plays. Idyllo, by Theodore Lack, will be found adaptable for the entrance or dance music of dryads or spirits. MacDowell’s From an Indian Lodge has the color and weird beauty for an Indian scene. For an orchestra The Mother Goose Suite, by Ravel, has four selections, any one of which would make a children’s overture.

CHAPTER 9

Plays for the Public Schools

Arranged According to Grade

Kindergarten and First Grade 7

Harper’s Book of Little Plays will be found useful because they are exceedingly simple and short and can be given without special costumes. They are good as exercises for beginners.

The Pageant of Trees, by William Morris. To be found in any complete collection of his poems. All the scholars can take part in this, several of the trees being spokesmen. The cast can run from ten to twenty. No special costumes required. If possible, all the children should carry tree branches. This is a good interlude for the spring or Arbor Day. As it only plays five minutes it should be used with a longer play.

When Mother Lets Us Act. (Published by Moffat, Yard and Co., New York.) This is a book that contains many suggestions and ideas that could readily be prepared by teachers.

Second Grade 8

Baby New Year, an Episode. From Brownikins and Other Plays. (Published by Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York.) See Chapter 11, Plays for Special Holidays.

The Grasshopper and the Ants, from The Dramatic Festival. (Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.) There are twelve or more characters. It can be given by a cast of all girls, all boys, or boys and girls. No scenery or special costumes required, but can be used if wished. Plays half an hour. Is good for schoolroom use. Can also be given outdoors. Is very serviceable for country schools.

The Moon’s Silver Cloak, from Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form. (Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.) Half a dozen characters.

7 Climax not such an essential here as in plays for older children.

8 Climax not such an essential here as in plays for older children.

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

Lasts eight to ten minutes. Can be given without special costumes or scenery by a cast of boys and girls. Also in the same volume The Honest Woodman, founded on Æsop’s Mercury and the Woodman.

Third Grade

Bearskin, a fairy play, from Little Plays for Little People. (Published by Hodder and Stoughton, New York.) A one-act play with five characters, boys and girls. Interior scene. Requires simple costumes to be effective. Plays fifteen minutes.

The Enchanted Garden, from The House of the Heart. (Published by Henry Holt and Co., New York.) An outdoor play which can readily be given indoors. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Farmer and His Sons, a fable play from Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Two. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) Half a dozen characters, boys and girls. Can be given without special scenery or costumes. Plays ten minutes.

The Grasshopper and the Ants. See Second Grade.

The Magic Wood, a fairy play, in Little Plays for Little People. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Six characters, boys and girls. Plays twenty minutes. Interior scene, but difficult setting. Costumes rather elaborate. Might be given in the Ben Greet manner.

Fourth Grade

Bearskin. See Third Grade.

How The Indians Planted Powder, from Plays of Colonial Days. (Published by Longmans, Green, and Co., New York.) An outdoor play that can be given indoors. See Plays for Boys, Chapter 14.

King Alfred and the Cakes, from Little Plays, by Lena Dalkeith, in Children’s Hour Series. Has four characters, boys and girls. It plays about half an hour, and while possible for the Fourth Grade, will require study. Saxon costumes, easily fashioned. Interior scene.

On Christmas Eve, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.)

Now in use in the schools. Very easy to give. See Chapter 11, Plays for Special Holidays.

Princess Tenderheart, from Little Plays for Little People. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Interior scene. Two acts. Seven characters, boys and girls. Plays thirty-five minutes. Not so difficult as pictures of costumes would lead one to suppose.

PLAYS FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Enchanted Garden. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Gooseherd and the Goblin, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) Outdoor play that can be given indoors very easily. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Princess and the Pixies, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) One-act fairy play now in use in the schools. Cast of boys and girls, ten in all. Interior scene. Very easy to give. Plays eighteen to twenty minutes.

The Song in the Heart, from Little Classics in Dramatic Form, Book Three. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) This is a little play based on Grimm’s fairy tale of The Three Spinners. Cast of boys and girls, and can be given without special scenery or costumes if so desired.

Fifth Grade

A Little Pilgrim’s Progress, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) Twelve characters, boys and girls. Interior scene. Puritan costumes. In use in the schools. Can be given as a Thanksgiving play.

Little Men. Dramatized by Elizabeth Lincoln Gould from Louisa Alcott’s story. Two acts. Interior. Modern setting. Everyday clothes. Very easy to give. Ten characters, six boys and four girls. Plays about forty minutes.

Little Women. Dramatized by Elizabeth Lincoln Gould from Miss Alcott’s story. Delightful play for six boys and four girls. Two acts. Modern setting. Plays about forty-five minutes. Modern costumes, or costumes of Civil War time.

Nimblewit and Fingerkin, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) A fairy play in one act. Nine characters, boys and girls. Can be increased to fourteen characters, if desired. Can be given by a cast of girls. Easy scene-settings and costumes. Widely used in schools and settlements. Plays twenty-five minutes, or a little less.

On Christmas Eve, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 11, Plays for Special Holidays.

The Pageant of Hours, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Persephone, from Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form, Book Four. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Princess Tenderheart. See Fourth Grade.

The Fairy Changeling. (Published by Richard Badger, Boston.) See Chapter 10, Plays, Pageants, and Operettas for whole schools.

The Three Wishes, from The Silver Thread. (Henry Holt and Co.)

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

Interior scene. Two boys and one girl. Plays fifteen to eighteen minutes. First produced by the University Settlement, New York City.

Sixth Grade

Abraham Lincoln, Railsplitter, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 11, Plays for Special Holidays.

A Brewing of Brains, from The Silver Thread. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act folk play. Can be acted by boys and girls, or all girls. Three characters. Interior scene. Easy to give. Plays fifteen to eighteen minutes. First produced by People’s Institute, New York.

King Cophetua, from Little Plays for Little People. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Twelve or more characters, boys and girls. Interior scene. Two acts. Plays half an hour.

Persephone. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Robin Hood, by Lena Dalkeith, from Children’s Hour Series. Scenes from Robin Hood. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Christmas Guest, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 11, Plays for Special Holidays.

The Forest Spring, from The Silver Thread. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Three Wishes. See Fifth Grade.

Seventh Grade

Benjamin Franklin, Journeyman, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play. Interior scene. Three boys. Two girls. Simple Colonial costumes. Plays half an hour.

Daniel Boone. See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

George Washington’s Fortune. See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

Hiding the Regicides, from Little Plays from American History. (Henry Holt and Co.) Nineteen characters, boys and girls. Seven scenes. Six indoor and one outdoor. Suited to school auditoriums. Has been played in private schools. Plays about an hour and ten minutes, including short waits to change scenes.

Little Bridget, a fairy play, from Six Fairy Plays for Children. (John Lane Co.) Charming play founded on William Allingham’s poem. Indoor setting. Ten characters, boys and girls, or all girls. One hour in length.

Robin Hood. See Sixth Grade.

The Boston Tea Party. See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

PLAYS FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Mistake at the Manor, from Short Plays About Famous Authors. (Henry Holt and Co.) Six characters, boys and girls. Could be given by a cast of all boys. Interior scene. Simple eighteenth century costumes. Plays about forty minutes. Has been produced by the Clinton High School, New York.

The House of the Heart, from the volume of that name. (Henry Holt and Co.) A morality play. Twelve characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Draped interior. Simple quaint costumes. First produced at Educational Theater, New York City. Then at Fine Arts Theater, Chicago, 111. Prize play of the Educational Dramatic League, New York City, etc., etc. Plays an hour.

The Snow Queen, by Leonora Loveman. Fairy play in four acts. Boys and girls. Ten characters. Plays two hours. Fairy and peasant costumes. (Royalty to be paid for each performance.)

The Wonderful Rose, from Six Fairy Plays for Children. (John Lane Co.) Four characters, boys and girls. Plays over half an hour. Interior scene. Good characterization.

Eighth Grade

Allison’s Lad, from the volume of that name. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

A Brewing of Brains. See Sixth Grade.

A Pot of Broth. Celtic folk play in one act, by William Butler Yeats. Three characters, two boys and one girl. Interior scene. Whimsical and poetic. Plays twenty-five minutes.

A Christmas Eve with Charles Dickens. See Chapter 11, Special Holiday Plays.

A Christmas Party, from Festival Plays. See Chapter 11, Special Holiday Plays.

Benjamin Franklin, Journeyman. See Seventh Grade.

Fortunatus and Cassandra, from Little Plays for Little People. A classical play in three acts, requiring Greek costumes. Twelve or more characters, boys and girls. Plays three-quarters of an hour. Better for school auditorium than for schoolroom.

Hiding the Regicides. See Seventh Grade.

Miss Burney at Court, from Short Plays About Famous Authors. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play suitable for the eighth grade and high school. Six characters, boys and girls. Eighteenth-century costumes. Interior scene. Can be given in school-room. Plays half an hour.

Mrs. Murray’s Dinner Party, from Little Plays from American History.

(Henry Holt and Co.) Three-act play with one interior scene throughout. Easily managed. Fifteen characters, boys and girls. Colonial costumes. Plays about an hour and ten minutes.

Priscilla, Myles, and John, from Holiday Plays. (Duffield and Co.) Tells in dramatic form of the courting of Myles Standish. Interior scene. Four characters, two boys and two girls. Pilgrim costumes. Easy to give. Plays threequarters of an hour. Widely used.

Scenes Form the Life of Lincoln, from Little Plays from American History. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 11, Special Holiday Plays.

The Boston Tea Party, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

The Foam Maiden, from The Silver Thread and Other Plays. (Henry Holt and Co.) One-act play. Simple interior scene. Three characters, a boy and two girls. Plays twenty minutes. Very easy to give.

The Fairies’ Plea, from Short Plays About Famous Authors. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays and Pageants.

The House of the Heart. See Seventh Grade.

The Hundredth Trick. See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

The Little King. By Witter Bynner. An historical play in one act, dealing with the son of Marie Antoinette. Boys and girls. Five characters. Plays half an hour. Has been produced in settlements.

The Mistake at the Manor. See Seventh Grade.

The Maid of Orleans (based on authentic records), from Little Classics in Dramatic Form. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) A simple, clear, historical play suited to the school auditorium, and involving a thorough study of the language, costumes, and customs of the time. Cast of twenty-five boys and girls. Well worth doing. Costumes to be copied after Boutet de Monvel’s Jeanne D’Arc.

The Snare and the Fowler. See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys. When Heine Was Twenty-One. From Short Plays about Famous Authors. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play. Interior scene. Eight characters. Good for the eighth grade and high school. Boys and girls can act it easily. Simple costumes. Could be given in schoolroom. Plays less than an hour.

The Pageant of Months, by Christina Rossetti, can be found in any complete collection of her poems. It has fourteen characters, boys and girls. Requires special but inexpensive costumes. One interior scene. Plays half an hour. A complete analysis of this play is to be found in the present volume. Austin Dobson’s Vignettes in Verse are suited to school auditoriums. They can be given by a cast of six girls alternating for the different parts. They require a better stage than the ordinary schoolroom because they

should have eighteenth-century screens or cretonne screens for a background, and the costumes should be as good an imitation of Watteau as possible.

CHAPTER 10

Plays, Pageants, and Operettas in Which the Whole School May Participate

Elsa and the Trolls. By Helen Shipton. Elaborate indoor scene, suited to a children’s theater, or an exceptionally well equipped school auditorium. Twenty-one characters, boys and girls, ages twelve to fifteen. Also in the same volume The Babes in the Wood, four acts, twenty-two characters, boys and girls. Very elaborate. Suited to a children’s theater or wellequipped school auditorium.

Snow White. The Winthrop Ames edition with music by Edmund Rickert. (Dodd, Mead and Co.) A fairy play. This is the version acted at the Little Theater, New York. The acting rights are held by Mr. Winthrop Ames. Permission to use it must be obtained from him. Address The Little Theater, New York City. Twenty-one or more characters, a cast of boys and girls. Indoor and outdoor scenes. The ages of the players range from nine to fifteen. It plays two and a half hours. Absolutely delightful.

The Fairy Changeling. (Richard G. Badger.) Also found in St. Nicholas Book of Plays. A charming fanciful fairy operetta with thirty-five characters, boys and girls, in ages ranging from nine to fifteen. Gilbertian humor. Pretty costumes, with directions for making them. Airs and choruses from Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

The Greatest Gift, a Mid-Year of Spring Festival. From The Dramatic Festival. (G. P. Putnam’s Sons.) A charming festival or lyric play. Has one scene throughout, a forest glade. Cast of twenty-five or more boys and girls, or all girls. Ages six to fifteen. It could be given out of doors, but it is essentially an indoor play. The forest setting requires darkness and light to give the right effects. For an adequate production of this festival technical staging and lighting are required. Has dances and choruses and detailed descriptions of costumes. Excellent for a children’s theater, and also fills the needs of girls’ schools.

The Magic Chest. (E. P. Button and Co.) Interior scene. Twenty-four characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Ages eight to fifteen. Plays about an hour and a half.

The Pageant of Patriots, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt

and Co.) An indoor pageant composed of episodes that can be used as separate plays. Nine scenes and a Prologue. The scenes are very simple. Some of them can be omitted or included as desired and still leave the pageant coherent. From fifty to two hundred children can take part in it, ages six to eighteen. Boys and girls. Full description of music, costumes, and scene-setting is given. Good for whole schools and already used in them. Characters represented are Lincoln, Franklin, Washington, Captain John Smith, the Spirit of Patriotism, etc., etc.

The Pied Piper. Dramatized from Browning’s story, and published by E. P. Button and Co. May be played indoors or out of doors. Cast of twentyfive or more characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Ages eight to fifteen. Music given and suggested. Suggestions for simple and effective costumes. Plays an hour and a half.

The Hawthorne Pageant. A simple pageant that can be given indoors, if so desired. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Silver Thread. From the volume of that name published by Henry Holt and Co. A Cornish folk play. Cast of thirty or more characters, boys and girls. Age of players ranges from nine to fifteen. Interior scenes. Three acts. Plays two hours. Full descriptions of costumes and scene-settings. Has been given in The Children’s Theater, Cincinnati, and in settlements and public schools throughout the country. Used in the schools of Ohio for group reading. Has been produced in high schools, and under the auspices of the Drama League.

CHAPTER 11 Special Holiday Plays

For Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Washington’s Birthday, Lincoln’s Birthday, Patriots’ Day, and Fourth of July.

Christmas

A Christmas Carol. Founded on Dickens’ story. From Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form. A play suitable for older boys and girls, advanced clubs in settlements, and for the eighth grade in the public schools. Boys and girls. A few younger children to play the parts of the little Cratchets. Good for a community in the country.

A Christmas Eve with Charles Dickens, from Short Plays about Great Authors. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play which includes a “dream” Christmas Masque. There are three boys and two girls in the play, and twenty-two boys and six girls in the Masque, for which a ‘dream gauze’ curtain is required. Requires a school auditorium for adequate production, and elaborate costumes. Delightful play.

A Christmas Party, from Festival Plays. (Duffield and Co.) Interior scene. Thirteen characters, boys and girls. The play is in one act and plays about an hour. Ages of players range from ten to fourteen years.

Baby New Year, An Episode, from Brownikins and Other Plays. (Frederick A. Stokes Co.) A play for very little children. Appropriate for the second grade in the public schools. Interior scene. Three characters. Plays ten minutes.

On Christmas Eve, from The House of the Heart and Other Plays for Children. (Henry Holt and Co.) A play in one act. Very simple interior scene. Modern setting. Eleven characters, boys and girls. Plays twenty minutes.

The Christmas Guest, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) A little miracle play in one act. Interior scene. Eight characters, boys and girls. Plays twenty minutes. Widely used.

See also The Guild of Play Books (Curwen’s edition) for old English Merrymakings and dances; and Christmas suggestions to be found in St.

Nicholas Book of Plays and Operettas.

Washington’s Birthday

George Washington’s Fortune, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) An outdoor play that can be given indoors with a little rearrangement. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Lincoln’s Birthday

Abraham Lincoln, Railsplitter, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) An historical play giving an accurate picture of Lincoln’s boyhood. Simple interior scene. Ten characters, boys and girls. Ages ten to fourteen. The play contains an old-fashioned dance, and the costumes are very simple. Plays thirty-five minutes. Widely used.

Scenes from Lincoln’s Life, from Little Plays from American History. (Henry Holt and Co.) These four scenes can be given as a short pageant play or as little separate one-act pieces. All the scenes are interior, but different. It will take a cast of forty boys and girls to give the whole play. Time: Forty-five minutes. Or the scenes themselves may be given as one-act pieces lasting ten minutes each. Scene I has nine characters. Scene 2 has six characters. Scene 3 has fourteen characters. Scene 4 has five characters, and at least half a dozen supers. Has been produced in private schools. Can be used in schoolroom or school auditorium. The third scene could be played on a veranda.

Thanksgiving

A Little Pilgrim’s Progress, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Fifth Grade.

Priscilla, Myles, and John, from Holiday Plays. (Duffield and Co.) See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Eighth Grade.

Pilgrim Interlude, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) An outdoor play that has been used indoors. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Also see Thanksgiving and Harvest festival suggestions in Percival Chubb’s Plays and Festivals, published by Harpers. Other Thanksgiving suggestions may be found in Folk Festivals and How to Give Them, by Mary Needham. (Huebsch.)

Patriots’ Day

Mrs. Murray’s Dinner Party, a three-act play from Little Plays from American History. (Henry Holt and Co.) Also possible for Fourth of July if given indoors. See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Eighth Grade.

The Boston Tea Party, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 14, Plays for Boys.

Fourth of July

The Hawthorne Pageant, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) As Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, this pageant may be used as a celebration of his birthday if so desired, by a cast of all girls, or boys and girls. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Hiding the Regicides, from Little Plays from American History. (Henry Holt and Co.) This play could be given in a town hall or rustic theater. See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Seventh Grade.

The Pageant of Patriots, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A children’s pageant in which whole schools, settlements, and communities may participate. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Uncle Sam’s Birthday Party, by Hazel Mackaye and Mrs. Glenna Smith Tinnin. Beautiful symbolic festival suitable for whole schools, settlements, and communities. It presents such well-known figures as Uncle Sam, Columbia, and the various States and their products. First produced as a civic Fourth of July Celebration in Washington, D. C., under the auspices of The Drama League. Simple and effective costumes. Dances and their music indicated. Thirty-five characters at the least, and from that up to one hundred. Boys and girls, ages twelve to fifteen and over. Splendid for city as well as country use. In manuscript form. Can be had from Miss Hazel Mackaye, Shirley Centre, Mass., upon payment of a moderate royalty.

Abraham Lincoln Episode, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

George Washington’s Fortune, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Pocahontas, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

CHAPTER 12

For Camps, Communities, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, etc.

Abraham Lincoln Episode, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A play for boys and girls. Twenty-five characters. Simple backwoods costumes, and Indian costumes. Ages of cast eight to fifteen. The episode, including two old-fashioned dances, lasts twenty-five minutes. Has been played a great deal.

A Son of the Yemasse, from Little Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Four. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) It is based on William Seymour Gibbs’ novel, The Yemasse. Is a fine play for boys. Requires Indian costumes. Has twenty-six characters, ages thirteen to fifteen and over. It is very dramatic, and though its ending is tragic, its story is tense and interesting, and it is a play that boys will like. It plays three-quarters of an hour.

Benjamin Franklin Episode, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A picturesque episode in two scenes. Forty characters in simple costumes. Boys and girls. Ages range from eight to fourteen. Characters include Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette, John Adams, etc. It plays forty minutes, and contains five dances, as well as full directions for staging, simple music, and inexpensive Colonial costumes. Used as a festival by settlements and schools.

Daniel Boone: Patriot, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) An historical play for boys with thirty or more characters. Plays half an hour. Contains a war-dance. Costumes Indian and scout. Characters range in age from eight to fifteen. A good play for Boy Scouts. Has already been used by them.

George Washington’s Fortune, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A play founded on an incident of Washington’s youth. Six characters, one girl and five boys. Ages eight to fourteen. Plays twenty minutes.

In Witchcraft Days, from The Hawthorne Pageant in Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) Puritan play. Twenty or more characters, boys and girls, or all girls, their ages ranging from eight to fourteen or older. Plays half an hour. Has been used in girls’ schools and by summer camps.

PLAYS

Merrymount. An historical episode from The Hawthorne Pageant in Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) Cast of twenty-five that may be increased to fifty. Boys and girls, or all girls. Simple, effective costumes. Play contains a May Pole Dance and Revel. Ages of players range from eight to fifteen and older. Has been used in summer camps and high schools.

Midsummer Night’s Dream as edited by Ben Greet in The Children’s Shakespeare Series will be found to be wonderfully adaptable for communities, camps, and summer schools. Can be given by a cast of twenty-five boys and girls, or a cast of all girls, at ages ranging from eight to fifteen. Also good for indoors. The stage directions are very complete.

Magic Wood, from Little Plays for Little People. (Hodder and Stoughton.) A play that is really listed for indoors, but which makes a delightful outdoor play. Six characters, boys and girls. Ages seven to twelve. Easy costumes. Plays twenty-five minutes. And has two acts. Is a good play to give on a porch in a summer community, with the audience seated on the lawn.

The Fairies’ Plea, from Short Plays about Famous Authors. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play. Seven characters, boys and girls. Ten or more supers. Fairy costumes. Plays less than an hour. Good for May Day and Arbor Day.

The Hawthorne Pageant, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A pageant which can be given indoors or out of doors. Chorus, Prologue, Two Episodes, and an Interlude. Four or five dances. Simple costumes, with full directions for making them. Puritan and Cavalier dress. Fifty characters necessary to give it, and from that to two hundred can be used. Boys and girls, or all girls. Is especially suited to a girls’ camp. First produced at the Wadleigh High School, New York City, as a celebration of Arbor Day. Then at Tyringham, Mass., as a celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town. Good for community as well as camp use. Used in girls’ schools.

Persephone, from Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Four. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) Twenty or more characters. Girls in ages ranging from eight to fourteen. Simple Grecian costumes. The right play for girls’ camps and a spring festival. Plays three-quarters of an hour.

Pilgrim Interlude, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) An Interlude with thirteen characters, boys and girls. Ages eight to fourteen. Plays half an hour. Contains chorus and an Indian dance. Costumes Pilgrim and Indian. Has been used by girls’ clubs.

Pocahontas, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) Historical play with thirty or more characters, boys and girls. Contains Indian dances and ceremonies. Plays half an hour. Ages of players range from eight

to fourteen or older. In use in settlements. Particularly appropriate for a camp. Also for use by Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls.

Siegfried, from The Silver Thread and Other Folk Plays. (Henry Holt and Co.) An outdoor play in one act. From the German. Five characters, two girls and three boys. Or can be given by a cast of all girls. Very simple costumes. Ages eleven to fourteen. Has been used in girls’ camps.

The Dream Lady, from Six Fairy Plays for Children. (John Lane Co.) A delightfully written one-act play which can be given by a cast of boys and girls, but which is better for a cast of girls. Sixteen characters, in age from ten to fourteen or older. Plays three-quarters of an hour. Produced at The Children’s Theater in Cincinnati, and popular in settlements.

The Forest Spring, from The Silver Thread and Other Folk Plays. (Henry Holt and Co.) An Italian folk play. Four characters, a boy and three girls. Or can be given by four girls. Ages ten to fourteen. Very simple costumes. Used where small casts are desired. Can also be given indoors.

The Elf Child, from The House of the Heart and Other Plays for Children. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play with twelve or more characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Has been widely used. Characters from seven to thirteen years of age. Produced in many places under the auspices of the Junior Department of The Drama League.

The Gooseherd and the Goblin, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) A fairy play with eight characters, boys and girls. Easy fantastic costumes. Ages of players from eight to thirteen. Plays twenty minutes. Can also be given indoors.

The Enchanted Garden, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) A garden play. Fifteen or more characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Ages six to twelve. Flower costumes. Plays twenty minutes. Contains a dance.

The Pageant of Hours, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) A very simple pageant in verse, with fourteen characters. Can be given by a cast of boys and girls, or all girls. Ages seven to twelve. Grecian costumes. Plays twenty minutes. Used in schools, and produced by the Junior Department of The Drama League.

The Pageant of Patriots, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A pageant in which a whole community, school, or settlement may participate. (See Plays, Pageants, and Operettas for indoor version of this pageant.) It cannot be given with less than one hundred and fifty children, unless only a few of the episodes are used. The best average runs from two hundred to five hundred players, boys and girls. There are eight episodes and a prologue, with full directions for costumes, properties, and

dances. This pageant was first given in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N. Y., by the ten Social Settlements of Brooklyn. It was the first children’s pageant ever given in this country, and its characters represent scenes from the life of Lincoln, Captain John Smith, Washington, Franklin, etc., etc. It has been produced by schools and under the auspices of women’s clubs and by children’s theaters. Was used as The Safe and Sane Fourth Celebration for Boston, Mass. See article in Outlook Magazine, by Myra Emmons, July 2, 1911.

White Magic, from Six Fairy Plays for Children. (John Lane Co.) A play that can equally well be given indoors or outdoors. One act, fifteen characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Ages ten to fourteen.

Wild Animal Play, by Ernest Thompson Seton. (Doubleday, Page and Co.) Sixteen characters, boys and girls, ages eight to fourteen. Plays half an hour. Has all the characters made popular through Mr. Seton’s books and teaches natural history at the same time that it interests its players. Especially good for camp. Could be given by a cast of boys, by making slight changes. In this case it would be admirable for Boy Scouts.

CHAPTER 13 Plays For Settlements

Wide and varied are the uses of plays in settlements. Through them the members of the settlement clubs can be taught our language and respect for our flag. Yet too often do the young people come to think lightly of, or despise the simple art, the folklore, and the customs of their native land. The settlement that produces plays of these elder countries (the plays, of course, are acted in English) shows its young people the heritage they have brought with them, and should never forget. Moreover, it is a bond that draws young and old together: for fathers and mothers, seeing the native costumes and perhaps knowing the native legend, are able to grasp much of what goes on, and take an interest in it. It is often a tragically evident fact that the emigrant mother with no knowledge of English finds her children growing away from her. But with the production of an Italian play for Italians, or a Russian play for the Russians, the children are only too glad to consult their “sisters and their cousins and their aunts,” not counting their mothers and their grandmothers. They ask about costumes. How did mother wear this or that in the old country? They borrow trinkets or gay handkerchiefs. Churches and guilds in all our cities have this same problem to deal with. Therefore, in this particular compilation stress is put on the folk play. The strictly patriotic or ethical play can be found under other headings.

English Folk Plays

A Brewing of Brains. English folk play. See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Sixth Grade.

The Silver Thread. See Chapter 10, Plays, Pageants, and Operettas for Whole Schools.

French Folk Plays

The Maid of Orleans. This is not a folk play pure and simple, but it does deal with French legend, “The Fairy Tree,” as well as French history. See

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS

Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Eighth Grade.

The Three Wishes. See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Fifth Grade.

Siegfried. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays. Snow White. See Chapter 10, Plays for Whole Schools.

Irish

A Pot of Broth. See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Eighth Grade.

The Foam Maiden. See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Eighth Grade.

The Traveling Man. A mystical religious play by Lady Gregory. An interior scene, very easy to give. Characters, a man, a woman, a little child. Two girls of fifteen could play the adult parts, a child of seven or eight the child’s part.

The Land of Heart’s Desire, by William Butler Yeats. A fairy play with about fifteen characters, some representing fairies. Can be given by girls of fourteen.

The Twig of Thorn, by Marie Josephine Warren. A delightful fairy play in two acts. Twenty characters. Simple picturesque costumes. Plays an hour and ten minutes. Is good for a girls’ club.

Italian

The Course of True Love. A comedy from The Dramatic Festival. (Putnam’s.) Italian costumes and setting. Eleven characters, boys and girls, or all girls. Very elaborate scenery, unless the scenery is imagined. Plays one hour. Excellent for older clubs in settlements, or for boys and girls of fifteen and fourteen. It needs cutting for the latter in order to make it run quickly. The Forest Spring. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Norwegian

Troll Magic. An outdoor play that can be given indoors. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

Russian

Minka’s Wedding. This is a good play for boys and girls of fifteen, taken

from The Dramatic Festival. (Putnam’s.) A cast of all girls can also produce it. It has an interior scene in two acts, and distinct Russian atmosphere. The costumes, which are rather elaborate, are Russian throughout. Some of the longer speeches and songs, notably that of Ingor’s Troop, will have to be cut by the dramatic director.

Peter the Great’s School, from Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Four. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) This play, can utilize a dozen to fifteen boys and girls of ten to twelve years of age. It has simple scenes, and the Russian costumes it requires can be easily fashioned. It plays fifteen minutes.

The Snow Witch. A Russian folk play from The Silver Thread and Other Folk Plays for Young People. (Henry Holt and Co.) This is a play in one act, with a simple interior, and full directions for simple inexpensive costumes. Twelve characters, boys and girls, or it can be given by a cast of girls. It contains a folk dance, and plays half an hour.

CHAPTER 14 Plays for Boys

Allison’s Lad, from the volume of plays of that title. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play suitable both for eighth grade and high schools. Simple interior scene. Seventeenth-century costumes and setting. Requires intelligent acting. Has been widely used by high schools and amateur dramatic clubs. Plays half an hour or a little over. The ages of the boys taking part should be at least fifteen to eighteen. Six characters.

Daniel Boone: Patriot, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

A Son of the Yemasse, from Little Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Four. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

How the Indians Planted Powder, from Plays of Colonial Days. (Longmans, Green, and Co.) Historical play. Five characters, ranging in age from ten to thirteen years. Plays fifteen minutes. Indian costumes. Will interest boys.

The Boston Tea Party, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) A play for boys that is in wide use in the public schools, private schools such as Phillips Exeter, library centers, young people’s theaters, and dramatic clubs. It is historically accurate, and has an easy interior setting and costumes, with full directions for making them. There are nine characters, boys of twelve to fifteen or over, and it plays half an hour or forty minutes, according to the length of the fencing bout which it contains.

The Hundredth Trick, from Allison’s Lad and Other Martial Interludes. (Henry Holt and Co.) Simple Elizabethan interior and costumes. Four characters. Has been acted by both amateurs and professionals. Requires the best powers of those taking part in it. Ages fifteen to eighteen at least. Plays thirty-five minutes.

The Snare and the Fowler, from Allison’s Lad and Other Martial Interludes. (Henry Holt and Co.) A one-act play in blank verse. Three characters. Simple interior scene. Or can be given with background of curtains. Costumes of the period of the French Revolution. Has been widely used by amateur dramatic clubs, high schools, settlements, and colleges. The boys taking part should be at least from fifteen to eighteen years of age.

Wild Animal Play, by Ernest Thompson Seton, is a play for boys and girls, but by rearranging some of it, it can be given by a cast of all boys. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

CHAPTER 15 Plays For Girls

Persephone, in Children’s Classics in Dramatic Form. Book Four. (Houghton Mifflin Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Elf Child, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Enchanted Garden, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) A garden play. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Dream Lady, from Six Fairy Plays for Children. (John Lane and Co.) A play that can be given indoors or outdoors, but which is particularly appropriate for the latter. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The Hawthorne Pageant, from Patriotic Plays and Pageants. (Henry Holt and Co.) Can be given indoors or outdoors. See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

The House of the Heart, from the volume with that title. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 9, Plays for the Public Schools, Seventh Grade.

The Pageant of Hours, from The House of the Heart. (Henry Holt and Co.) See Chapter 12, Outdoor Plays.

CHAPTER 16 Plays for Group Readings

This means plays that are read in the schools, without an attempt at acting. Each student is responsible for whatever character he or she assumes, and reads only that character’s lines throughout the play. This is done as a study in English, as it has been found that children take a keen interest in this form of drama.

Adam’s Dream and Two Other Miracle Plays, by Alice Corbin. Suitable for third, fourth, and fifth grades.

Snow White, by Jessie Braham White. (The Winthrop Ames edition, Dodd, Mead and Co.) Suitable for fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.

The Blue Bird, by Maurice Maeterlinck. Suitable for fifth, sixth, and seventh grades.

The Pageant of Months, by Christina Rossetti. Suitable for fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.

The Silver Thread, by Constance D’Arcy Mackay. (Henry Holt and Co.) Suitable for fifth, sixth, and seventh grades.

CHAPTER 17

Books That Will Be of Help to Dramatic Directors, Teachers, Social Workers

Educational Dramatics, by Emma Sheridan Fry. Folk Festivals and How to Give Them, by Mary Masters Needham. Plays and Festivals, by Percival Chubb and Associates.

The Civic Theater, by Percy MacKaye.

The Dramatic Festival, by Anne Throop Craig.

The Festival Book (May Day Past Time, and The May Pole), by Jeanette Lincoln.

The Irish Theater, by Lady Gregory; The Playhouse and the Play, by Percy MacKaye. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, by Jane Addams.

Costumes and Scenery for Amateurs

Preface

This book endeavors to set before amateurs who are doing their own producing a series of costumes and scene sets that can easily be copied for plays, pageants, masques or festivals in which adults and children take part. Costumes for children’s plays are specially pictured since there is no costume book for children extant. Both children and adults will find costumes and scene designs covering the range of the historical play, the folk play, the fairy play and the play of fantasy. By following the designs in this book any American Historical Pageant may be completely costumed. As it is manifestly impossible to give all the costumes of all the countries of Europe in so compressed a space, the costumes and scenes most in use by amateurs have been chosen. With the scenes and costumes full descriptions of material, construction and color are given, and each costume and scene is made to serve as many as possible. Bat almost every case perspective has avoided in the because it is the great stumbling block of amateurs. Butterick patterns may be obtained for many of the costumes, and thanks are due to the Butterick Publishing Company for their kindness in allowing their admirable costume plates to be copied.

Suggestions for an inexpensive outdoor theater are also given. There are chapters on the amateur and the new stage art, on costumes and properties, on scene painting and lighting. The scenes are such as can readily be adapted to little theater, college, high school, grade school and townhall stages. The aim has been to strive for what is practical, and appropriate, and to avoid that which is difficult and bizarre.

CHAPTER 1

The Amateur and the Craft of the Theatre

The root meaning of the word amateur is art-lover and in these days of dramatic ferment the words creative amateur stand for a quality of mind that denotes true craftsmanship. Even now, as in the middle ages, the first step towards being a craftsman is to be a practicing apprentice. Therefore the aim of this book is to set before amateurs who are doing their own producing a series of costumes and scenes that can readily be copied for any play, pageant or festival. It aims to be what its title indicates a practical working handbook.

In range the costume designs cover the historical play, the folk play, the fantastic play and the play of faery. The material and color of each costume is fully described, and there are suggestions as to which type of play it is best adapted. In many cases patterns of the costumes may be obtained. Almost every costume is made to serve half a dozen different uses by the elimination of a cloak here, or the addition of a shield and crown there. For those who wish a wider variety of costume than that given here there are notes directing them to other costume books. In the present volume costumes for both children and adults are given. All the periods of American costume are portrayed, so that by referring to this book any American historical play or pageant may be completely costumed.

Since it is obviously impossible to give all the costumes of all the countries of Europe, or of all the periods in European history in so compressed a space, the costumes most in use in amateur productions have been selected. Moreover, with the exception of American costumes, only the most salient outlines of historical periods are given. The idea has been to avoid unnecessary fussiness of detail, mere overloading of accuracy. The outline, the spirit of each century is given, and after all, that is what is most necessary. Therefore, one may read: Mediaeval Costume for Nobleman, Twelfth to Fourteenth Century. This means that the costume in question represents a general type, and not the extreme fashion of a particular period.

The same thing is true of the designs for scenery. Where the play is mediaeval a general mediaeval atmosphere is given by the setting; but minutae has been omitted. In all these scenes, whether of Saxon or Elizabethan

times, care has been taken to avoid perspective, for it is the great stumbling block of the amateur scene painter.

Therefore, in so far as possible, perspective in these scene designs has been eliminated, and scenery which any amateur may be able to paint has been suggested. As has been said: manner and spirit are what has been striven for, not excessive detail. For what is scenery meant to be but an unobtrusive yet decorative background against which a play is played? In this case it has purposely been kept simple and inexpensive. Directions for its construction, materials and coloring are given in each instance.

Every scene represented may, by slight changes, be made to serve half a dozen different uses. The author realizes that while new, well equipped Little Theatres are constantly being constructed in all parts of this country, representing the finest type of creative work, there will remain in our midst for many years to come college, high school, grade school, guild hall and town hall “auditorium” stages equipped with non-imaginative, commercial, even rococo scenery, and restricted arrangements for lighting. In all probability it will be a long time before these stages are done away with. They must be made the most of as they stand. The one thing that can be quickly remedied about them is the scenery. With hangings or simple decorative backdrops, the most hopeless stage can be made more adequate than it ever was before.

No work is done by any amateur group but what is more or less influenced by two salient, economical aspects of design, namely, the use of simple flat backgrounds for modern or decorative scenes, and the use of one scene for a number of different purposes, made by changing its lighting and accessories. A sheer yellow wall for an oriental palace for Turandot points to what the absolutely plain backdrop can do in the way of heightening decorative costumes, placed against it. Sometimes, for other fantastic plays, a window or a door breaks the sheer wall, which may be jade green, or grey, or Italian blue according to what is set against it. A pantomime with all the characters dressed in white and shown against a black background, was recently given with remarkable effect. At a performance of a Christmas play in one of the German theatres, a backdrop formed of a deep blue curtain faintly powdered with silvery stars formed the midnight sky against which the gorgeously robed Magi were shown in silhouette.

The second aspect the use of one scene in a number of different ways was splendidly shown in a performance in a professional theatre where the play was Hauptmann’s Elga. Its scenery was plain even to austerity. By the substitution of a few pieces of furniture, and the closing and opening of a curtain, one scene was made to represent such widely different places as the

living room of a family whose tastes were not austere, and the bare, ascetic sleeping chamber of a monastery.

By this means, that is, by the use of a simple set with accessories that can easily be moved, there is a tremendous gain in the pace and continuity of a full-length play. Everyone knows that in many instances one of the drawbacks of amateur productions is the tiresome waiting between the acts. The interest in the story flags; the grip of the play is lost. If amateurs would be content to stage a play with one or two sets, or even with one set, and use discrimination in the selecting of their properties and accessories, they could lift the whole level of their performance. Better a swiftly moving and engrossing performance staged against the background of curtains, than a dragging production staged against half a dozen different backgrounds.

Non-commercial drama lies in the hands of the amateur. There is a permanent list of plays that have no commercial appeal, which can only reach their audience through amateur channels. Here is a challenge and an opportunity. Far too often the amateur chooses to appear in a play that has already had professional production, thereby challenging the memory of the audience, which consciously or unconsciously compares the professional and amateur production almost always to the detriment of the latter. The average amateur production (and by this we do not mean the productions of advanced Little Theatres) does not have, cannot have the finish and pace of the professional theatre. Why then challenge the audience? Why not produce a play that is new to the audience instead of repeating a well-worn success of the professional stage? In other words, why should amateurs, if they are art lovers, be content to repeat instead of to create? If it had not been for amateurs, such plays as Gilbert Chesterton’s Magic; Maeterlinck’s A Miracle of St. Anthony and Housman’s Chinese Lantern might never have been produced in this country.

In particular amateurs shine in the costume play. The color and poetic atmosphere of the costume play go far to carry it along. The disguise which the costume affords is an aid to the self-conscious amateur. Not only that, but such a change is wrought in the appearance of the actor that the illusion is greater. The audience can forget the personality which they know, and focus their attention on a personality which seems new. This is a gain for play and player.

The one-act play, which is the short story of the drama, is avidly seized on by the amateur because it affords all the opportunities of the longer play, acting, design, and direction, in a smaller compass. Most of the finest of our Little Theatres began with one-act play programs. As a rule, the amateur succeeds in this form of art, because it makes less demands than the long

play. For amateurs it is less apt to be “patchy.” And it may be just as much of an achievement. Was it not Clayton Hamilton’s immortal dictum: “A cameo can be as perfect a thing as a cathedral”?

Even children’s plays and children’s theatres feel the set of the tide. Where children’s plays and scenery were once chosen at haphazard, there is now a genuine desire for the candor and beauty of effect that one gets in the drawings of Boutet de Monvel. Children’s costumes and scenery have undergone a complete change. Amateur producers are realizing that only the best is a worthy offering for the impressionable years.

With the creative amateur, necessity is the mother of invention. It is extraordinary how they have managed to evolve an auditorium in which to act out of the most varied and unexpected places. They have made their start in barns, in studios, in forsaken chapels or churches, in long-abandoned old-fashioned “saloons,” in art museums, in sail-lofts, in out-moded garages, in decaying breweries, in stables, and in fish houses on wharfs with the sea running underneath! In England, in the midlands, such different places as a tithing-barn, dating from 1400, and a room in an ancient hostelry, with its minstrel gallery still intact, have been used to house progressive groups, and in the North, “the wind-swept backbone of England,” an Elizabethan granary, with beautiful great beams, hand hewn, and still bespeaking their time….

In the effectiveness, the mood, the “one-ness” of scenery and costume, lighting plays a tremendous part. In the hands of a skilled technician it is an art in itself, yet an art with which this book cannot concern itself. It is too vast a subject. Every producing amateur must have his or her five-foot book shelf, which contains the latest book on this subject a book which will list places where the least expensive lighting equipment can be had. Even along these lines amateurs have beaten their own trail. Marvelous things have been done with electric lights and a humble tin wash basin for their reflector! Often with the help of the local electrician, really lovely and ingenious effects have been evolved by the experimentally keen pioneer.

As to the minimum equipment, Maurice Brown once said something that has never been bettered. According to him, the most rudimentary equipment with which amateurs could proceed was given as follows: The auditorium must have a stage raised not less than 24 inches from the floor and measuring not less than 24 feet wide, 25 feet deep and 14 feet high with a proscenium opening not less than 20 or 22 feet wide. The space included in these measurements must be entirely free from all obstructions. There must be at least two dressing rooms adjacent to the stage. These must be adequately ventilated, lighted, and heated, and supplied with water. The

stage must be provided with an electric feed wire carrying no volts, capable of being tapped and having either direct or indirect current.

When the strictest economy is necessary, time after time it has been proved that the backdrop, flanked at each side by dark green drapes, is far and away the easiest solvent for a street scene, or a battlement, or a mountain scene requiring depth. The scenes given in this book are in the main just those that could be flanked by draperies.

It is tonic to note in how many ways amateurs with initiative have met “auditorium difficulties” and conquered them. Take the problem of a very large organ, its pipes running from floor to ceiling, filling in the entire background of the shallow stage where a college group wish to give a play. This is a familiar problem. Two colleges solved it differently. One, with only a little money to spend, had a dark grey cyclorama of canton flannel curtains hooked with iron hooks and eyes into a wooden strip that ran across the ceiling. The other college, with still less to spend, had a plastic set built, the same color as the organ pipes, which rose above the set with the effect of pylons. This was a college with the familiar rule “No nail must be driven into any of the woodwork.”

Even running tracks above gymnasium floors have been used as a stationary device from which to hang background drapes!

Ingenious sets of movable steps are helpful in one community theatre where the town hall stage presents difficulties.

Another problem was a pageant to be staged in an armory, with a background stupefyingly bare and realistic. A huge, yet inexpensive cydorama of sky-blue canton flannel was used, against which quantities of pine trees and compo-board rocks were placed, instantly creating an outdoor atmosphere. Against this background the whole pageant was acted.

Garish scenery existing in schools or town halls has been repainted a softer color, toned down until it is an adequate background for modern scenes.

Yards of cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver are needed for a mediaeval scene with impressive costumes, and so a modern scenic artist promptly gilds and silvers common white oilcloth! The effect is superb! Or a black cydorama (such as is often used for impressionistic plays in German theatres) is needed a cyclorama against which all-white properties will give an Aubrey Beardsley poster effect. Or this same background may be used on other occasions for fantastic plays with parakeet-colored properties and furniture, red, vivid blue and orange. Such a background has more than once been made by dyeing every available bit of old and faded material a dense black. Into the home or workshop dye-vat go multiple yards of odds

and ends of cloth, which are stitched together and hung with remarkable effectiveness.

The use of misprint materials bought from the for a mere song has, under soft lighting, given a lovely stippled effect. The poet Yeats has told how w a dark cyclorama of curtains with a central strip of tapestry made of painted cloth, against which a tall antique chair stands, can give all the atmosphere of a spacious and dignified ancient castle room. And who can forget Lady Gregory’s description of the impoverished beginnings of the Irish Players when background curtains were made of burlap potato sacks painstakingly stitched together?

A beginning group in Baltimore the Vagabonds collected and used large samples and left-overs of damasks, silks, cretonnes and velvets for a gay, happy-go-lucky proscenium curtain that had the essence of vagabondage! And long ago the “Co-optimist” group in London conceived the plan of placing an oblong painted scene” cleverly lit like a narrow picture in the center of their dark curtain-cyclorama. By focussing the light on these small central scenes, and dimming the rest of the stage, they made possible varying backgrounds for a string of different sketches or fantasies. Sometimes this inset scene would be an English cottage exterior, sometimes a bit of Italian garden, or the roofs of Paris by moonlight a hint here for the pocket-empty amateur!

All in all, undoubtedly the most useful and best inexpensive curtain cydorama that can be had (where there is only money enough for one) is a set of forest-green denim curtains. Cut-out scenery made of compo-board can be silhouetted against them such as green-black cypresses for a formal garden, or rows of brilliant hollyhocks for a cottage garden, or giant toadstools and bell-shaped flowers for a fairy place. White birch trunks for a springtime wood…drooping willow for a place by a stream…variety is endless.

Even a cramped stage with a solid back wall of brick tempts the ingenious producer. Such a wall, whether painted the delicate blue of the sky, or whitewashed and painted with light, forms an admirable horizont Thus a stumbling block becomes an asset! Magic has been worked in this respect in the Peabody Playhouse in Boston. Wonderful effects of depth can be given in a small space, for the power of illusion wrought by the horizont is very great. It gives true sky effects, whether it be the fleece-white sky of morning, the hot vault of noon, the rose of sunset, the succeeding violet of dusk, the deep ultramarine of night one melts into the other imperceptibly. Through all creative phases of amateur drama whether in the Little Theatre, the college, the church, the school, or the out-door theatre, the

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

workshop where things are done and the craftsman who gets them done, are dominant.

Often when art becomes stale, it is the amateur who revitalizes it. In England, the miracle wagons and the amateur marked the beginning of the greatest dramatic renaissance that we have yet known. In Russia, it was the amateur group at the Moscow Art Theatre; in Ireland, the Abbey Players; in America, the Washington Square Players, that group who so quickly became professional, and in turn led to the Theatre Guild. All this has become theatre history.

CHAPTER 2 Costumes

As with the scenery, so with the costumes in this book: the ones most in use are the ones given in the illustrations. Those less in use, and not given in the costume plates, will be described in this chapter. Costumes for adults and children will be discussed, and some special directions for costuming the latter will be appended to this chapter. Costume and the history of costume is such a vast subject that only a few of its most salient points can be discussed here. The costumes of the most ancient peoples will be discussed first: then the Greek and Roman: and then the early French (Gauls) and Saxons, and so on up to modern times. Since the material and color of costume in the olden time was often regulated by law as well as by custom, some of the laws and customs must be briefly sketched. But a few words first to the amateur producer. In costuming a play a good costume book is an immense help; next to the costume book, standard histories, well illustrated. If the reader of these lines is a producer living in the most out-of-the-way hamlet, or an already over-crowded public school teacher, they will find a large dictionary of the utmost help. Webster’s dictionary is the one referred to in the following paragraphs, but any large dictionary win be sure to have helpful points as to ancient costumes, and properties. In the back of dictionaries, under the heads of Mythology, Armor, Heraldry, Middle Ages, etc., there are sure to be illuminating pictures. Under the words Armor, Canopy, Broadsword, Coat of Mail, Shield, etc., etc., pictures may be found, and be found more quickly than in looking in books.

Oriental Costumes

Costumes for Bible plays, and plays laid in the Holy Land are not given in the costume plates, because plays of this type are not in such general use as the historical or fantastic play. They can easily be made, however. The basis of the men’s costume is the tunic, linen or cotton, and it is fashioned after the same lines as the tunic on page 156. It should be very plain and have only a cord for a girdle. Besides this tunic the men wore a mantle,

generally striped in one or two colors. This was fastened to one shoulder and drawn about them. The older men wore the tunic coming almost to the ankle, the tunics of the young men came to the knee. All classes wore sandals. The poorer classes such as shepherds and tillers of the soil wore coarse tunics such as can be made from potato sacking. Tunics were either in white or a solid color. They were never striped. The mantles were sometimes made of plain material. Scarlet, purple and gold were colors usually confined by custom to men of high rank, kings and high priests. All boys wore the short tunic, whether in white or colors. The women wore long tunics, falling straight from neck to ankle. These tunics were made in plain colors or white. With this was worn a plain or striped mantle, much larger than the mantle worn by the men. It was draped about the head and shoulders and fell to the edge of the tunic. Anklets and bracelets of gold, silver and jewels were worn. The hair floated loose about the shoulders. Girls wore the same costumes as women, but in very little girls the tunic was shorter. The following books will give suggestions for costumes: The Castle of Zion, by Dean Hodges; the “Peeps at Many Lands Series;” the Acting Edition of Joseph and His Brethren, by Louis N. Parker; the illustrated edition of Ben Hur; and, best of all, Tissot’s Life

of Christ

Arabian Costumes

For Arabian costumes, with their combination of white and flaring color, made in the same way as the costumes described above for the Holy Land, and for the strange Eastern costumes of the Arabian Nights, including Persia, the following books will give good ideas for costumes to be used in festivals and pantomimes: Omar Khayyam, illustrated by Elihu Vedder; The Arabian Nights, by Olcott; Princess Baldura, by Lawrence Housman, illustrated by Dulac; The Arabian Nights, by K. D. Wiggin and N. A. Smith, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.

Egyptian Costumes

The curious tight swaddled Egyptian costume, mostly made in striped material, can be copied from the following books for those wishing to give Egyptian dances or pantomimes: Illustrations of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian Costume by Baxter. The Egyptian Headdress with a band across the forehead, and two strips hanging over the ears, widening as they touch the shoulder, is exceedingly easy to copy.

Chinese Costumes

For Chinese costumes of the strange bright loveliness seen on old tea chests, and for costumes for Housman’s Chinese Lantern, Aladdin, the little play of The Willow Ware Plate, etc., etc., the following books: The Punishments of China by George Henry Mason, can be found in most libraries. It has pictures in color. See also the story of Aladdin in The Arabian Nights by Lawrence Housman, and the Arabian Nights by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.

Japanese Costumes

For Japanese plays and operettas, like the Mikado, Japanese costumes are already given here; they can be copied from the following books: Japanese Fairy Tales, Japan in “Peeps at Many Lands” series, and Letters from Japan, by Mrs. Hugh Fraser.

Costumes of India

Costumes for plays of India, such as Tagore’s, should be copied from books on that country. The long white sleeved tunics, and brilliant turbans of the men, the white costumes of the women, and the splendor of the dancing girls can be copied from books listed here. The sari, or mantle of the women, is cut the length and breadth of a Bagdad couch cover, and is wound about the head and shoulders. It should be remembered that all the different casts of India have different costumes, and it is not as easy to costume a play laid in that country as it appears at first sight. Mowgli by Kipling has fascinating pictures which can be copied. Also Kipling’s complete works have illustrations by John Lockwood Kipling.

Ancient Grecian Costume

Ancient Grecian costume for men can be fashioned with the tunic on page 156 as a basis. This was the way Grecian tunics for men were made. The materials were woolen or linen. Greek youths wore a cloak called a chalmys. It was four and a half feet long by three feet wide. It was fastened to the right shoulder. Solid colors were used in cloaks and tunics. Ornamentation was confined to borders on the tunic, and around the edges of the neck and sleeves. The foot gear was sandals low sandals, or high laced sandals as on page 156. Greek men and boys wore their hair short. They

never parted it on the side. It was always parted in the middle.

Grecian soldiers wore upper body armor, had a curiously shaped helmet, and round shields. They carried long spears. The shield was called an aegis, and a picture of it called by that name can be found in Webster’s dictionary. Pictures of the god Mars, given in dictionaries and mythologies, will give a good idea of the helmet and armor. This armor can be simulated by heavy gray carpet paper. Boys wore a tunic coming to the knee; but little boys might not wear the chalmys, the national garment for men and youths.

The costume for a Greek woman will be found on page 158. It can also be found in pictures of the Greek goddesses. It was made of wool or linen. The costume on page 226 of a Fairy can be adapted for a Greek girl by leaving off the wings. The costumes of Greek women or girls were either white, yellow, crimson, blue or green. They were always in solid colors. They might be ornamented with borders. Women and girls wore their hair high on their heads, or in a Psyche knot. It was bound with Greek bands or a fillet, or chaplet. Very young girls wore their hair “bobbed” much in the fashion of to-day. The hair, save in the case of dryads, water sprites, hamadryads, and other mythological creatures of the woods and fields, was never worn flying. The following books give suggestions for Grecian costumes for men, women and children: Greek Dress, by Ethel Abrahams; The Attic Theater, by Haigh; The Odessy for Boys and Girls, by A. J. Church. For the Isadora Duncan type of costume for children, with excellent color effect, see The Schuman Album of Children’s Pieces, with illustrations by Willebeeck Le Mair.

Ancient Roman Costume

The tunic on page 156 is the basis for a Roman costume for boys and men. The tunic was universal in Ancient Rome. Young men and soldiers wore the short tunic, coming to the knee. Older men, nobles and law givers, wore the tunic ankle length. Pictures of Julius Caesar will recall this costume. Over this tunic was worn a toga, or cloak, the national garment of the Romans. It was fastened on the left shoulder, and then drawn about the body. It was made of wool white wool for ordinary folk, purple for emperors and generals. No one except an emperor or a general was allowed to wear purple. This was a rale rigidly enforced. Purple was the color of the Caesars. 9

The soldiers wore the short white tunic with upper body armor, a breastplate, a round shield and a helmet but the helmet was far different

9 The purple of the ancients was a Phoenician dye more like scarlet than like our modern purple.

in shape from that of the Greeks. Over the skirt of the tunic, hung from the armor at the waist were strips of leather. Pictures of leather body armor can be found under the word corium in Webster’s dictionary. The helmets varied, and can best be copied from pictures depicting the reign of the various emperors. The Roman boys and men wore their hair cut close. The costumes for Roman women were something like that of the Greek, enough like it for the Greek Costume Plate 2, to be used as a basis for it without the border. The Fairy on page 226 without the wings can be used for a Roman Girl. Both girls and women wore their hair bound about the head. It was only very little girls who wore it loose. The Roman women wore woolen mantles for the Winter which were cut in a large square and wrapped them from head to heel. The following books will give illustrations of Roman costumes: Illustrations of Greek Roman and Egyptian Costumes, by Baxter; The Story of Rome, by MacGreggor, to be found in the children’s room of most libraries; Landmarks of British History, by Lucy Dale; The Bankside Costume Book; Meyer’s General History, Illustrated; Guizot’s History of France, the first three volumes. If the amateur producer is living in a small hamlet or out-of-the-way place where the books mentioned here cannot be had, a glance at the encyclopedia under the names of the various Roman Emperors, Pompey, Caesar, Nero, Caligula will often discover accompanying plates. If an encyclopedia cannot be had, let the producer look in the back of any large dictionary under Mythology and good ideas for costume can be found.

Costumes of the Ancient Gauls

The men of Gaul had white tunics, knee length, breastplates, shield and helmets of armor. The helmet had small wings like a Viking’s helmet. A skin was fastened at their shoulders like a mantle. Their hair was long. Women wore long white tunics, and mantles of skins. Their hair was worn in two long braids. Children wore tunics. See Guizot’s France.

Costumes of Great Britain

More space will be devoted to the costumes of the Britons than to that of any other nation because more plays in current use are laid in Britain than in any other ancient country. Moreover, what was worn in Britain was worn with only slight differences in France, Holland, Germany, and Italy. The outlines of the costumes were more or less the same in all these countries. It was in the details that they differed.

The earliest costumes of the ancient Britons were the skins of wild beasts. These were fastened with thongs at the shoulders, and hung to the knee. They were like rude tunics, but tunics without side seams or sleeves. The arms and legs were bare often stained a bright blue, though this historical detail is too grotesque for amateur plays. The hair was worn long, and the beard also. Both were rough and matted. The women wore the skin tunics also. There was no difference. between the dress of men, women and children. All wore the skins of beasts. The hair of the women fell loose about their shoulders, and was perhaps a shade less shaggy than that of the men. Neither men nor women wore any adornment.

The real tunic came into England with the coming of the Romans, 50 B.C. It was roughly made and was of coarse material almost as coarse as potato sacking. It came in white, and in crude blue and red, and in brown. It was at first very plain, without border or ornamentation. Since the tunic of skins had been abandoned the Britons needed warmth, and often wore the skin of a wild beast hanging from their shoulders, much in the fashion of the ancient Gauls. (See Costumes of the Ancient Gauls.) But the early Britons wore no helmets. The hair fell loose over their shoulders. They either wore beards, or shaved their faces after the fashion of the Romans. The upper classes by degrees discarded the mantle of skins, and adopted a short woolen cloak made of straight lengths of cloth. Women wore tunics coming to the ankle. Peasant women wore skins fastened to the shoulders in cold weather; women of rank, the crude woolen cloak. Gradually both peasants and gentlewomen adopted the cloak as their one means of protection against the cold. Up to the end of the Fourth Century these primitive costumes were worn. The following books will give ideas of them: Strutt’s Dress and Habits of the People of England, The Bankside Costume Book; Landmarks of British History, by Lucy Dale.

By the fifth century (400) costume had made a great advance as to cut, color and material. The dress of the nobles had been greatly enriched, while the dress of the peasants was still very crude. Throughout these early times the dress of the peasants, men, women and children would remain the same for centuries, while the dress of the nobles and ladies changed.

The short tunic was at times worn by all classes, but the long tunic denoted rank. The tunic might really be said to be the national garment. The peasants and tradesfolk always wore the short tunic. The long tunic was worn by the nobility, and the Kings. It fell in graceful folds to the ankles. No peasant might wear it, but the noble might wear the short tunic if he chose.

The easiest way to call the dress of the fifth and sixth centuries to mind

is to say that it was the time of King Arthur and his Knights, and to copy the Copley Prints of King Arthur and his Knights, 10 by Abbey. All men of gentle blood now wore mail covering them from head to heel, and over this they wore either the long or short tunic in linen, or in fine silk. Shields were long and bore a coat of arms. For house wear the tunic with sleeves had come in, and these sleeves were usually loose and flowing. Peasants wore tunics coming to the knee, and wound strips of cloth about them for cloaks. Women wore a long tunic-like dress falling to the floor, with a long cord about the waist. This cord might be gold or silk. Their sleeves were the type known as angel sleeves. The hair was braided in long braids, sometimes interwoven with pearls. It was covered with a veil, bound about the brows with a circlet. The Abbey pictures will show these costumes. Watt’s picture of Sir Galahad is another good type to copy. Pictures may also be found in the following: Strutt’s Dress and Habits of the People of England; Meyrick’s Ancient Armor.

In the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, that is, from 600 to 800, the tunic was worn, either long or short, belted at the waist. A tunic with sleeves was sometimes called a surcoat. The mantle of the Saxons varied very much, and great liberty may be allowed the producer in designing its shape. It may be square or round, long or short, but it must be of a solid color. It should be wrapped round the wearer when he is out of doors, and should fall about him in loose graceful folds when he is indoors. It should be fastened with a febula or brooch on the right shoulder. Foot gear was composed of low sandal-like shoes, which covered the foot, and were fastened with bands of cloth or linen. These bands, for peasant wear in cold weather, were crisscrossed to the knee, and afforded as much protection as a stocking would. Also the tabard came in in these centuries and was worn both by nobles and tradesfolk. It was a garment fastened on the shoulders, open at the sides, and coming to the knee, or to the ankle. Under it was worn a sleeved tunic.

From the seventh to the tenth centuries women wore a kind of tunic dress fitting more closely than in the earlier centuries, and coming to the floor. Also the hair was covered with a long veil or light silk or cloth which fell over the rest of the costume. Besides this they wore a kind of tabard dress, with a sleeved tunic under it.

Children of high and low, rich and poor, wore short tunics, and the children of nobles wore the tabard made in rich stuffs. Their hair was

10 Copley Prints can be obtained from Curtis and Cameron, Boston, Mass. Reproductions of some of them may be seen in The Craftsman for Oct. 1911.

“bobbed” much as it is to-day, for boys and girls alike.

Pictures of these centuries may be found in the following books: Guizot’s Illustrated Histories of France and England; Strutt’s Dress and Habits of The People of England; Le Costume Historique, by Racinet; Meyrick’s Ancient Armor.

With the eleventh century (1066) there are the pictures of the Norman Conquest to follow, with William the Conqueror and his Knights. The tunic, long or short, was still worn, and it was still loose and full. Rich bands of gold, silver, embroidery or fur were now used to ornament the tunics of the nobility. Apart from ornamentation, which the peasants never wore, there was not a great difference between the dress of peasants and nobility in line and cut.

With the twelfth century (1100) there was a greater variety of costume. The long tunic, ankle length, and associated with King John and Macbeth, was now worn by the nobles, with cloaks for outdoor wear. Women wore the dress associated with Lady Macbeth, if they were women of rank. Armor was worn by knights, and covered with a long or a short tunic as pleased their fancy. It was the time of the Crusades, and the tunics of Crusaders, worn over their armor, had a large red cross on the breast. The tunic on page 163, with a red cross on it, could be worn by a crusader.

Peasants wore a short tunic, with a leather girdle, and soft ankle boots. These can be imitated by wearing black socks. Tights were now worn by the peasantry and yeomanry. It was the century of Richard Coeur de Lion, of Blondel, and of Robin Hood. Tunics for the yeomanry might be the regular tunic, or might open down the front over a linen shirt, and become a sort of coat. (See picture on page 165.) Men peasants sometimes wore their heads covered with a covering like that of the peasant woman on page 167. So did yeomen. Or they might wear the head covering given with Robin Hood.

Peasant women now began to wear tight bodices, and round, somewhat full skirts, like the woman on page 167. A leather girdle and pouch bag were worn with it. The head was covered as in the picture. This costume continued to be worn by peasant women until the middle of the fifteenth century. These costumes were worn by little peasant girls also.

The children of the twelfth century copied the costumes worn by their elders. Children of noble birth copied the costumes worn by the nobility. Children of peasant birth copied peasants.

Books from which these costumes may be copied are: Robin Hood, by Henry Gilbert, illustrated by Walter Crane; The Bankside Costume Book; Guizot’s History of France; Meyrick’s Ancient Armor.

From the end of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth centuries (1290-1400) the costume for English Kings and noblemen was the tunic (i.e., paltock), either long or short, as best pleased them. It might be short as on page 169, or it might come to the knee or the ankle. The tabard, described on page 123 was also worn. Tights were universally worn by the nobles and by peasant men. Soft low shoes, such as are pictured on page 169, were worn, or high shoes as in the picture on page 165. Tall peaked caps, round caps with a quill on one side, or soft brimmed caps turned up at one side with a quill as on page 165 were most in vogue. The cap on page 165 was more often worn by yeomen than by noblemen, however. Besides a long tight undersleeve as on page 169, there was a flowing over sleeve, to be seen on the same page. When this was cut in scallops round the edges it was called a “dagged” sleeve. In England the peasantry might not wear “dagged” or hanging sleeves. They were for the upper classes only. Remember this in costuming plays. Knights wore armor, as on page 163, with tunics of richly trimmed silk or velvet.

Through the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was very little change in the dress of peasants. Men wore the tunic as pictured on page 169, without sword or embroidery. Yeomen wore the costume pictured on page 165. Peasants never wore the long tunic. Strict rules of dress governed the peasant class. 11 From 1330 till 1556 that is, from the reign of Edward Third, until the eighth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign these rules governed peasant costume. Peasants and serving-men might trim their tunics with “lamb’s fur” as it was called, or rabbit’s fur. But they might not wear ermine, miniver, sable, silk, or gold embroidery under penalty of punishment. No servant might wear silver or gold either in trimming or by way of ornament.

Crimson or blue velvet was for the attire of Knights. Only they and the folk of royal blood might wear it. No one except royalty might wear cloth of gold. Scarlet and purple were for royalty also, and were worn on occasions of state. Ermine, silk, velvet, miniver, sable, and rich embroideries were for the nobility. Apart from the nobility, only the clergy were allowed to wear such furs as sable and ermine.

The peasants wore coarse materials, and plain colors. Where the nobles wore embroidery the peasants wore leather, leather girdles, leather pouches, etc.

The dress of ladies of rank during these centuries (1290-1400) is indicated on page 170. They wore long robes bordered with fur or embroidery.

11 These were called Sumptuary Laws.

Tight sleeves, or tight sleeves with a “dagged” over-sleeve. A girdle of gold or silver, or a cord of gold, or a rope of pearls was worn about the waist. The hennin, or steeple head-dress was worn. It was made of gauze or silk, and lined with some thin stiff material probably canvas. A veil was draped over it, and floated behind it. There was great latitude in the draping of this. A cloak of fur or velvet was worn for the out of doors. Shoes were low and soft, shaped like the man’s shoe on page 169. The fur and embroidery edging the robe was an indication of the wearer’s rank. No woman, unless noble by birth, might use ermine or miniver.

The costume of the peasant women varied very little from 1290-1490. It was on the same general lines as the peasant dress on page 167. In the fifteenth century it might be worn without the head covering if desired.

There is a great variety of books covering the costumes of these centuries and a full list of them is given here because amateurs play so many dramas laid in mediaeval times. First and foremost there is Jeanne D’Arc by Boutet de Monvel, a book giving most varied pictures of armor, chain and plate, of long and short tunics, of the dress of great ladies and of peasants. It is absolutely invaluable. There are two books on the Canterbury Pilgrims with fine illustrations: The Canterbury Tales, by Percy Mackaye with lovely illustrations in color by Walter Appleton Clark; and even better pictures from the costume point of view may be found in The Modern Reader’s Chaucer, by Tatlolk and Mackaye, with pictures by Warwick Goble. There are other beautiful pictures in Tales from the Pentamarone, illustrated by Warwick Goble, richly imaginative in line and color. The Guild of Play Books, by G. T. Crimmins, give illustrations of the folk-dance costumes that were worn in England from the earliest times. Then Guizot’s History of France, with its illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville must be mentioned again, because it gives not only costume, but mediaeval interiors, and furniture as well as outdoor scenes. Mediaeval head-dresses are given in Chats on Costumes by Wolliscroft. For ecclesiastical dress see Dictionnaire des Ordres Religeux, by Heylot.

The costume for men in the sixteenth century (1500) and the costume for women underwent a great change. For the first time since the Romans landed the tunic lost its hold. The doublet came in, and sleeves were full and slashed and puffed. For the nobles simplicity of attire gave way to ornamentation. The long cloak for men was abandoned. The short cloak held sway, A new sort of cap with a plume came in. There were ruffs for the neck. The costume for men may be seen on page 172. This is a noble’s costume. The same costume in coarse materials, without ornamentation and without the cloak, was worn by peasants. Brocades and silks were worn by royalty

and gentry, serge and unbleached linen shirts were worn by the peasantry. Instead of ruffs the peasants wore flat linen collars, or no collars at all. Leather jerkins were worn by the yeoman that is, a kind of leather tunic, worn over a shirt with puffed sleeves.

For women of rank, and the rich middle class, skirts were bell-shaped, and opened over a petticoat. (See picture on page 174.) There were tight, pointed bodices with long tight sleeves. Sometimes for daytime wear these bodices went high up to the throat and there was a raff of lace and linen, or they might be cut low, and have a great lace ruff standing out fanlike back of the neck. To say the words Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, should recall the costume of the middle and last of the century with its rich brocades and velvets. For state occasions women waved their hair and did it up on their heads. It had strands of pearl and gold bound about it. For the daytime there were caps of velvet, silk, or muslin edged with gold, pearls, or fur. All women, rich, and poor alike, covered their hair with a cap be it ever so magnificent or humble.

The costume on page 167 may be used as a basis for the costume of a peasant woman of the sixteenth century. Take off the head covering, have the bodice come up to the throat, or cut the neck low and round. Take off the leather girdle and pocket, and substitute an apron, and the peasant will be of the sixteenth century. It was in this century that the apron came in. The costume may be worn without the apron, to give variety.

Children’s costumes in the sixteenth century were copied after their elders. The boys wore doublet and hose, sleeves slashed and puffed. There was rich cloth, silk and velvet for the children of nobles and the rich middle classes. Poor boys wore coarse material. The costume for a man on page 172 may be copied for boys, only for children of peasants and tradesmen omit the cloak. It was only worn by sons of nobles and court pages. The costumes for little girls of noble birth may be copied from the picture of a lady on page 174. They wore the under petticoat and the bell skirt, in stiff brocades and satins. Their hair was done on their heads as the hair of the lady is done. They were an exact imitation of older women. But little peasant girls had more choice of costume. They may be dressed as the little girl on page 232, without the hanging sleeves. Or they may have their costumes copied after the peasant woman described two paragraphs back They seldom wore aprons, so that detail may be omitted. The dresses of peasant girls escaped the ankles, and left them free to romp and run a privilege not given to little girls of high degree, whose stiff long petticoats impeded them. All little girls wore caps, whatever their rank. But whether the caps of active hardy little peasant girls stayed on is a matter for conjecture.

While the costumes of the sixteenth century in England and on the Continent had certain National differences, it was a difference of detail and not of outline. Therefore the costumes indicated here were the costumes of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Flanders, Holland. The following books will give additional pictures of costumes: Strutt’s Dress and Habits of the People of England; Bennet’s Young Master Skylark, with illustrations by Birch; Historic Dress of the British Soldier, by Luard; also Albrecht Durer, by H. Knackfuss; The Dance of Death, by Holbein, for costumes on the continent from 1471 to 1543,

With the sixteenth century America appears on the scene, and therefore the costumes for the next centuries which were alike in America, England and the Continent will be given under the heading: “Costume in America from the Earliest Times to the Oral War.”

Eighteenth Century

The civilian dress of America and England differed very little. For the Military dress of the English during the American Revolution, see costume Plate 21, where an English Officer and an English soldier will be found. The following books will also be found useful: Historical Dress of the British Soldier, by Luard, and histories of England have pictures; Costumes in England, by F. W. Fairholt is good. There is also Sardou’s Collection of Eighteenth Century Costumes, by A. E. Guillamot.

Costumes in America from the Earliest Times to the Civil War

The very earliest American costumes were the Indian costumes. These varied with the various tribes, just as the costumes of Europe while more or less alike in their outlines in any given century were still touched with national characteristics. Amateurs cannot hope to cope with all these differences. They must take a composite Indian costume. Men may either wear the Indian costume that prevailed before the coming of the White Man breech cloth, wampum and feathers, or the Indian costume given on page 177.

With the Indians both sexes wore the same materials, though not made in the same manner. Dressed deerskin, and other hides formed the basis of their costumes. These can be simulated by khaki.

Indian braves and chieftains wore the costume given on page 177; but the Indian braves might not wear so large and impressive a war bonnet. Only the Indian chieftain might wear that. Khaki costume, khaki

moccasins, beads for the neck, and a gorgeous headband filled with feathers will make the costume complete.

The costume for an Indian Princess, for Indian maidens and squaws is given on page 178. It is the costume for an Indian Princess in the picture, because it is so elaborately embroidered. A plain Indian costume on these lines, and a bead headband and beaded moccasins should complete the costume. The squaws may carry a brightly colored blanket, and so may the Indian maidens. These blankets may be made of canton flannel in blue and purple, orange and jade, saffron and scarlet, etc., Indian designs should be appliqued on them by cutting out canton flannel, and stitching it to them. A very great Princess like Pocahontas wore white doeskin, which should be made on the same lines as that in the picture, and of canton flannel.

Conventional costumes for Indian children may be made by copying the boy’s suit on page 180 and the girl’s dress on page 178. They are made of khaki, just as the older Indians’ costumes are. No Indian child, boy or girl, should ever wear a headband or feather.

Other costumes for Indians will be found in the following books: The Book of Indian Braves, by Kate Dickinson Sweetser, and The Song of Hiawatha, illustrated by Frederick Remington; Sinopah, The Indian Boy, by J. W. Shultz, illustrated by E. Boyd Smith.

The earliest dress of people in America other than the Indians was of course copied from the English. The seventeenth century was a distinct departure in style from the sixteenth. With the seventeenth century (1600) began the period of Cavalier and Roundhead or, in other words, of the followers of King Charles, and of Cromwell. Their costumes differed as much from the Elizabethan costumes as they differed from each other. The restrictions as to peasant’s and gentlemen’s costumes had vanished; there was now not so much a difference of costume according to rank, as difference according to politics and religious adherence. Those who followed King Charles wore the Cavalier costume, those who followed Cromwell, the Puritan costume. All the other countries of Europe wore the Cavalier costume, save Holland, where the Cavalier and Puritan costumes were worn. Thus the Puritan costume is found amongst the early Dutch Settlers in New York, and all down the Mohawk valley. In America the Cavalier costume was worn in the South, but was frowned on as the “devil’s finery” in the Puritan North. A number of Cavaliers lived at Merrymount, in Massachusetts, and the abhorrence in which they were held is vividly described in Hawthorne’s Maypole of Merrymount. The Quaker costume was like the Puritan costume, save that it was worn in gray. The Pilgrim costume was, of course, like the Puritan. The Huguenot costume was like that of the

sixteenth century, and can be copied from those on pages 172 and 174. It should be in dull colors, and not in the best condition as to wear, for the Huguenots were fugitives.

The Cavalier costume is not given in this book because few amateur plays require it, and pictures of it can easily be found in the books which will be mentioned later. The dress of the cavalier consisted of a fine shirt of white linen, with a lace collar known as the Van Dyck now-a-days. He wore full breeches with rosettes and hanging ribbons at the knee band. The coat was of fine material, velvet, silk, or satin. Sometimes its sleeves were plain, as in pictures of King Charles. At other times they were slashed, and showed either a lining of a different color, or the fine white shirt sleeve beneath. This shirt sleeve was cut on the lines of what we to-day call a “bishop sleeve.” It was usually finished with a frill of lace. Ribbon love-knots were worn at the shoulders. Sleeveless leather jerkins were also worn, showing the white shirt sleeve coming through the arm hole. Or the leather sleeve might be slashed and show a silken undersleeve. The foot gear consisted of either silk stockings and low shoes with buckles or rosettes, or boots that fitted tightly.

The hats of the Cavaliers had broad flaring brims. They are imitated today in hats for ladies called “Cavalier hats.” The brim was rolled up at one side and fastened by either a buckle or a rosette. It had a sweeping plume. Plainer hats were rolled up at the side without the plume. The hair of the Cavaliers swept over their shoulders in love locks. They had small upcurling mustaches, or no mustaches at all. The colors they wore were bright and gay. The materials composing their costume were fine lawn and lace, silk, velvet, cloth, and leather. For amateurs who wish to copy these costumes, and are restricted from hiring them, or making them of expensive material, canton flannel is a good substitute for velvet, and sateen for satin. Gymnasium bloomers, with bright rosettes and ribbons at the knee band, soft white shirts with bishop sleeves, a sleeveless jerkin of canton flannel, and uprolled Cavalier hat, and the dress is complete. Leather may be copied by having leatherette, or deep buff oilcloth. The long sweeping cloaks of the Cavaliers can be copied for amateurs by having canton flannel in gay colors, which will have the look of velvet.

The women of the Royalist (Cavalier) party wore the type of dress indicated on page 187, the fitted bodice, and the full skirt falling in graceful folds to the floor. The cap, edged with pearls, gold, silver or lace, was much in vogue.

The children of Cavaliers wore costumes that were a copy of their elders. Boys wore the loose white shirt, and full knee breeches with rosettes.

Girls wore dresses coming to the floor as they had in Elizabeth’s day, only now the style was different. No little girls wore short dresses. For pictures of Cavaliers, see illustrated editions of Pilgrim’s Progress, Richelieu, by Theodore Cahen; The Laughing Cavalier by Franz Hals, and King Charles, by Van Dyck; also The Children of King Charles, by Van Dyck.

Puritan and Pilgrim dress for men can be found on page 182. The “pork pie” hat was of felt, or beaver. The cloak and suit were of serge or of the plainest cloth, or of woolen homespun. Silk, satin or velvet, were never worn by Puritans, nor fur cloaks, nor trimmings of any kind. The colors were gray, dark blue, brown, black, and dull purple. The collars and cuffs were of white linen or muslin. They never wore lace. Their costumes were in every way a contrast to the Cavalier. The colors were sober, the cut plain. Stout low shoes with or without buckles, and thick stockings were their foot gear. Under their Puritan coat they wore a plain white shirt.

The costume for a man-at-arms of the Roundhead party can be seen on page 185. This was also the costume for a Captain John Smith, or for a guard of Richelieu of France. It was a costume of armor worn by most of the continent, and by England and later America. The armor and the full knee breeches need little description. They can easily be copied by amateurs.

Puritan and Pilgrim women wore the costume shown on page 184. With this they wore a cloak similar to the man’s on page 182. The materials were woolen home-spun, cloth or serge for the dress, and white lawn or linen for the cuffs and kerchief. The apron may be worn, or on occasion may be left off. It was of white muslin. The hair was hidden by the white cap.

Puritan boys were costumed like the men, save that they wore a small round cap instead of a pork pie hat. Mostly they went with their heads uncovered. Little Puritan or Pilgrim girls were costumed like the women, with long dresses and the crossed kerchief. Their hair was done up on top of their heads and covered with a white cap that was exactly like what their mothers wore.

The following books and pictures will be found useful for their pictures of Puritans, Pilgrims, Quakers, Early Dutch Settlers and for men at arms, whether English, French, or Spanish: Illustrated editions of Pilgrim’s Progress, by Bunyan; illustrated editions of Longfellow’s Myles Standish; Eggleston’s Illustrated History of the United States, is especially good; also The Man with the Iron Hand, by John C. Parish, with illustrations by B. F. Shambaugh.

The Eighteenth Century

Men in the early part of the eighteenth century wore costumes differing

in detail from those of the latter part, though the colors and materials and general outlines were the same. In the reign of Anne, the costume given on page 194 would have a coat that came to the knee, and that instead of being cut away, came down straight from the waistcoat. The cuffs on the coat sleeves should be very wide should in fact come halfway to the elbow. The ruffle and jabot was the same as on page 194. So was the foot gear. But the wig, instead of being tied away from the face, was very large, curled in “sausage curls” and fell about the shoulders. Sometimes the hair was worn in its natural color, being curled and perfumed merely. The Grande Monarch often wore it so. Again, it was snowy with white powder. The upper classes wore the curled wig. Poorer people had to be content with their own hair, drawn back from the face, and plaited into a queue, with the end very curly. Or the hair might fall lank about the face, straight and uncurled, and ending above the shoulders. The pictures of Benjamin Franklin to be found on one cent stamps show this type of hair dressing very plainly. It was the mode followed by the Quakers. Men of fashion wore silk and velvet, and the working classes wore the same type in serge and cloth. Where men of fashion wore lace ruffles, servingmen wore ruffles of unbleached linen or coarse white muslin.

The dress of the second half of the century is shown on page 194. This might be in fine cloth, or even velvet for gentlemen in America, and in cloth and serge for the working classes. The military styles of France, England and the American Minute-men followed these outlines with a likeness to each other that is surprising. A different hat, knapsack, buttons, straps, and epaulets were worn by each of the several countries just mentioned, but the outlines of the costumes were the same. Study of the military styles of the period will show how the costume may be adapted to a dozen different uses.

The dress of women in the eighteenth century was of two orders, the short looped-up skirt called a pannier worn over a plain or a quilted petticoat, with a white fischu and powdered hair, and the longer dress with a somewhat full skirt opening over a petticoat as is shown on page 202. The short dress was the one most popular in America before and during the Revolution, and the long dress was worn immediately after the Revolution. It is often called the Martha Washington Costume.

With the short dress, for state occasions, were worn silk stockings with clocks, and high heeled slippers. Black slippers had red heels. All slippers had buckles, whether of silver, paste diamonds, or common pewter. People of means wore silks and satins and fine lawns India lawns they were called. Poorer people wore muslin, and homespun woolen. Those who followed the

fashion wore in winter long coats with long tight sleeves and big cuffs of fur. The coats were full and plain, though sometimes they had a watteau pleat in the back. They fell to the edge of the dress. They might be dark green, bright blue, or scarlet. With them was worn a fur tippet. Muffs were huge; and white fur muffs very fashionable, though only the rich could have ermine muffs. Cloaks were also worn shaped like the Puritan cloak the man is wearing on page 182. These were in gay or dark colors, as pleased the wearer. Dark cloaks were usually lined in gay silk. Hoods were worn with these. Mitts were very fashionable, particularly long ones, made of lace.

The costumes for children in the eighteenth century followed exactly the lines of the costumes of their elders. Boys were dressed like the man on page 194 and girls like the girl on page 203 after the Revolution, but before the Revolution little girls wore that type of dress with panniers and with the underpetticoat only coming to the ankle. Pictures that will be useful for military and home dress are to be found in the following books: Historic Dress in America, by Elizabeth McClellan; The Song of Sixpence Book, illustrated by Walter Crane; Dame Fashion, by James Price (1786-1912); Sardou’s Collection of Eighteenth Century Costumes, by A. E. Guillmot; Illustrated editions of Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield; also Romney, by Humphry Ward.

The Nineteenth Century

Men in the early nineteenth century, from 1800 to 1825 wore the dress we associate with two famous characters, Napoleon and Beau Brummell. Napoleon adopted Roman costume with nineteenth century differences, imposed it on Europe, and the English, and Americans copied it. It had very few traces of Rome as far as men’s costumes were concerned, but women with their scarfs, and straight high-waisted dresses had more of a semblance to Rome than the men. Men wore either very tight-fitting knee breeches, and stockings without the hint of a wrinkle, or long tight breeches almost like tights, that came down to the ankle, and fastened with an elastic under the instep. There was a stock, for the neck, with or without a frill of lace, a waistcoat, and a cutaway coat with tails. The hats were tall “beavers.” In France they wore the Chapeau Bras just after the Revolution, and then the Napoleonic hat. The waistcoats might be plain or flowered. The “great coats” worn in cold weather were like the great coats of Napoleon. America copied the styles of Europe; but in a conservative manner.

The women in the early half of the nineteenth century, or up to 1830, wore what is called Empire style, copied after the robes worn by the Empress

Josephine. High-waisted dresses, in satin, thin silk, or silk muslin were worn for “finery.” Everyday muslin was worn for everyday clothes. Slippers were of kid or satin, had no buckles for women, and were laced over the instep with straps such as we associate with the sandals of the Greeks and Romans. Jewels were worn sparingly. A necklace and earrings were considered enough. Airy scarfs were in vogue; also shawls of soft materials and colors.

Children of the early nineteenth century were dressed as those on page 234. They wore Elate Greenaway costumes.

Costumes of the nineteenth century can be found in the following books: Beau Brummd, by Clyde Fitch, with photographs of Richard Mansfield; The Life of Napoleon, by Ida M. Tarbell; Marigold Garden, by Kate Greenaway; Under the Window, by Kate Greenaway; The Young Minute Man of 1812, by Tomlinson, has fine military costumes.

Military Costumes of the Civil War

Military costumes of the Civil War can be found in the following books: History of Costume in America, by Elizabeth McClellan; Civil War editions of Harper’s Weekly, on file in many libraries; also on file in libraries, Godey’s Lady Book, of that period. Fine costume ideas can be had from Ida Tarbell’s Life of Lincoln. Also from the following: The True Story of U. S. Grant, by Elbridge S. Brooks; The American Soldier, by Elbridge S. Brooks (14921900); Hero Tales from American History, by Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Cabot Lodge; A Child’s Guide to American History, by Henry W. Elson.

Symbolic Costumes

The symbolic costumes for symbolic figures used in pageants and festivals should be designed along lines that will readily convey to the eye of the onlooker just what the character is meant to personify. The costume should be salient yet simple. As a rule symbolic costume should be made like Grecian costumes. The long lines and simple folds of drapery lend themselves admirably to such costumes.

Symbolic costumes may be used in a great number of ways. In pageants and city festivals the geographical attributes of a city may be shown as well as its arts and industries. A harbor city might have its sea and shipping personified. Neptune in a pale sea green tunic with bands of irridescent scales as a border for it, an irridescent Viking helmet, a Triton’s threepronged staff, and slung from a silver girdle a Triton’s “wreathed horn.”

Shipping might be in a sailor blue robe, with a robe of fish-netting caught

at each shoulder with a silver anchor. She might carry a small fully rigged ship in one hand. Instead of a crown of stars she might wear a crown made of small silver anchors.

If a city is a place of iron foundries, then a stern male figure clad in iron gray, with breastplate, helmet, and shield of iron would typify the industry. Agricultural pursuits are easy to symbolize. Farming might be a Hebelike figure with a horn of plenty. A youth in a white tunic leading blooded horses can symbolize stock raising. A shepherd with a tunic of white wool, and a sheepskin cloak can typify sheep raising.

The states, wearing costumes that symbolize them, are figures often used in pageants and festivals. Maine, with its pine green, or Kansas with grain yellow, are examples of what can be done in this way. The figures of countries England, America, France can also be easily symbolized.

Father Time, the Hours, the Seasons, Famine, Fever, War, Peace, Prosperity, Joy, Hope, Fire, Destruction are all figures that can wear symbolic dress. Suppose a village wishes to typify its destruction by fire and its rebuilding. Fire in a dress of flame, red and yellow, cut in leaping tongues so that it swirls and dances as she dances, can leave the scene to Destruction in ash gray, and in turn Destruction can be driven out by Hope in pale green, who leads the settlers on to begin rebuilding.

There is nothing that cannot be symbolized and brought clearly before an audience by the means of costume, color and line.

Costumes for Children’s Plays

Correct and artistic costuming for children’s plays involves a knowledge of historical accuracy, color and material.

Study the best costume books, and histories and fairy tales illustrated by well-known artists. See if the author of the play has not given directions which you can follow.

Historical accuracy is a rock on which many amateur directors come to grief; they are not sure of their centuries. Headgear and footwear are apt to be of one century and costumes of another.

Select your costumes with reference to your background, so there will be no color clash. Use scarlet and pink very sparingly. They put other colors out of countenance. Do not costume all your characters in bright shades. It makes the scene confusing to the eye. And unless you are producing an operetta, do not costume your peasants all alike, and all in the same colors. Take common sense as your guide. Do not put little peasant girls into red velvet skirts or woodcutters into satin jackets. Let them wear the plain

rough materials that they would naturally have. Strive to haw your costumes appropriate. Twenty years ago fairies were dressed in short stiff white skirts, and tight star-spangled bodices, but to-day we know that there is nothing stiff or starchy about a fairy. They are costumed in soft clinging materials suggesting the twilight of deep woods, the glamour of mist and moonshine. Do not put weary travelers, explorers, or pioneers into spickand-span raiment. Their garments should show the dust and soil of travel. See that the foot gear of all the players in one scene belongs to the same period. See that your fairies and spirits wear sandals, not white high-heeled slippers or high-heeled slippers of any sort.

One well-known English pageant master posted this sign where it could be read by all groups of children taking part in the pageant: “Keep up your stockings. Have your foot gear all alike” This might also be posted by the directors of children’s plays.

Discuss the costumes with the child players who are to wear them. It is perfectly possible for a costume to have historical value, to be in harmony with its background, and yet have emotional value as well. A sinister figure might be all in black, with touches of scarlet; innocency in white; while a pale tender green, like the first touch of Spring, would be something meant to suggest youth and hope. Woodsy creatures should wear wood colors, and so forth. Fairies of the dawn would be in dawn color; twilight elves would be in gray, the color of the twilight. A morality play recently produced by a cast of amateur players had a background of deep cream color; the play was laid in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The century in which the play was laid naturally decided the lines of the costumes; but to the youthful players themselves was left the deciding of the color scheme, aided always by suggestions from the director. “Love,” said one child, “should wear white, because the thoughts of Love are always pure and fair.” This decided that all the colors must be symbolical. Wisdom, by common consent, was attired in deep purple, a royal color, while another character, Grumble, must be all in black, since grumbling suggested darkness. “And Envy should wear green,” cried another, “because people are said to be green with envy.” What color should Vanity wear? This was a difficult question to decide. Pink, blue and yellow were all discarded. “I think,” said one dark-eyed girl, “that Vanity should wear a little of every color.” Thus an imitation brocade was decided on for Vanity. This shows how symbolic costumes can be designed.

See that the players wear their hair in a mode that corresponds to their costumes. Do not put modern head-dressing and ancient costumes together. Study authentic pictures. The Greek women or girls wore their hair

bound in a chaplet. In Saxon times they wore it in two long heavy braids. In the Middle Ages girls and women wore their hair tucked beneath a cap or coif. In the eighteenth century it was pompadoured and powdered. Peasants and Indian maidens would naturally wear their hair in two braids. Woodland spirits and little dryads would naturally wear their hair flying. Unless the play is laid in the present time or in the days of the Civil War, never put hair ribbons on the children. Above all, never, never put them on spirits, fairies, court ladies, Greek maidens, Puritans, Indians or Colonials.

Do not mix the costumes of two centuries. Unless otherwise indicated, keep the lines of the costumes soft and flowing. Do not bunch the costumes of fairies and spirits with too many petticoats.

Make the simple costumes yourself. They will have better material, lines, and color than those obtainable from costumers. If you wish to, dye them the desired shades, although the color range of what you can buy is now much larger than formerly.

For materials the simplest weaves will do as well as the most ornate. Use cheesecloth for thin materials such as fairy dresses and Greek robes. Use cambric and silesia to simulate satin, cotton crepon or silk crepon, where a softer and heavier material than cheesecloth is needed. Use silkoline for flowered silk. Use burlap for rough peasant suits or tunics, hop sacking for others. White cotton batting with black tails basted on it makes ermine. For mediaeval costumes the pictures in illustrated editions of Guizot’s Histories of France and England will be found invaluable. Also Boutet de Monvel’s Jeanne D’Arc, and good illustrated editions of Pilgrim’s Progress contain pictures of costumes that can be easily copied. For Grecian, mythological, and neo-grecian costumes, The Wonder Book, by Hawthorne, with illustrations by Walter Crane, has some very charming examples. For different periods of American costume try Eggleston’s Illustrated History of the United States, and Costume in America, by Elizabeth McClelland. All the books of fairy tales edited by Andrew Lang have delightful fairy costumes in them. For costumes of the Holy Land, see The Castle of Zion, by George Hodges, with illustrations. The Copley Prints of the Holy Grail, by Abbey, will suggest the costumes for the Court of Arthur and his Knights. The Arabian Nights, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish has imaginative ideas for Arabian costumes.

CHAPTER 3 Scenery

There are three kinds of scenery. Painted scenery, with a backdrop (back curtain) and wings (side pieces). Screen scenery, which may be either painted or draped with a neutral tinted fabric. Curtain scenery, or scenery composed wholly of draperies. These three kinds of scenery will be discussed in their order in the present chapter. By choosing any one of them there is absolutely no reason why the most meager or the most badly shaped stage cannot be remedied. The most obscure townhall, or the most cramped public school auditorium need not go without scenery any more than the college or the city dramatic club need go without it. Moreover, the scenery discussed here can be made to suit all purse strings. For those with a little money to equip their stage there is the painted scene. For those with less money, or with a stage which scenery will not fit, there is curtain scenery. And for those with very little money there is screen scenery. For the school or settlement that must fairly count its pennies there are the draped screens the very cheapest scenery that can be had anywhere, and yet perfectly adequate.

Before a committee chooses its scenery it is well to look at its stage, and see which kind will suit its angles best. To choose the materials and the color for it is the next step.

Painted Scenery

In dealing with painted scenery it must be kept in mind that the huge stumbling block in the way of amateurs is perspective and again perspective. Few and far between are the amateur scene painters who can cope with it. Because of this difficulty most of the scenes given in this book have no perspective at all. With this stumbling block removed the amateur may go ahead, and paint Sherwood Forest, or a Fairy Palace. The great simplicity that is the hall-mark of the new stage art is easily within his reach. Scenery needs only a few decorative details to convey its meaning. People can readily be shown that it is not necessary to clutter a scene in order to convey the effect of a palace. Simple lines and draperies will do it quite as well. It

is perfectly possible for amateurs to fashion their own scenery if it is simple. Since the technical word cyclorama will occur a number of times in the present volume, it might be as well to explain what the cyclorama is, before going further. It is meant to serve the same purpose as the horizont described on pages 112, 113. A backdrop is flat. A cyclorama is curved. It is a semi-circle inclosing the stage, and generally made of cloth. It gives the effect of a real horizon. For that reason followers of the new stage art prefer it to the backdrop, for it has a greater power of illusion, if skillfully managed. It can be made by hanging scantily gathered curtains of cloth from a semicircular iron shaft. These curtains should reach from the floor of the stage to a point well above the audience’s line of vision. The top of the cyclorama must not be seen. The cloth may be delicate blue to suggest the sky, or it may be white flooded with varying lights. It is only practicable for outdoor scenes, and can be used as a background for houses, towers, trees, temples, etc. It is not feasible for a deep forest, however. For mysterious, fairy-like scenes wonder-ful effects may be gained by having a semitransparent cyclorama. In this case the cyclorama is hung with semitransparent curtains three deep. For these curtains yeddo, a thin creamcolored bunting, can be bought by the piece for four cents a yard. (It should be creped before it is used by wringing it out of cold water, twisting it, and letting it dry.) Back of this cyclorama may be castles set on hills, vistas of trees, fairy portals, and the like, cut out of compo board. The spot light is placed behind them so that they are reflected into the curtains in silhouette. There are no footlights used with these effects. All the light comes from the back of the stage, and things must not be too distinctly seen. As to how much light, and where it is to be placed: there is no royal road to lighting for the amateur save through experiment, for no two stages have the same proportions and the color of scenery is seldom duplicated. The unpracticed amateur will find the backdrop the easiest to make, while the more practiced amateur stage technician will find that for the cramped stage the cyclorama will give an amazing effect of distance. Colored transparencies (frames of tinted isinglass) can give all the color required when used with spotlights. Spotlight and transparencies can be obtained from any store carrying theater supplies.

Painted scenery should be made on frames, one frame for the back, and one for each side, unless otherwise indicated. In some cases the back-drop, as it is called, may be a painted curtain which can easily be rolled up and down. The side pieces or wings may also be curtains that can be rolled up and down. There are stages where this mechanism is not possible. Under these circumstances the frames must be made as a sign standing in a mea-

dow is made with strong wooden stanchions behind it. This is a more or less clumsy way of making scenery, but many a high school or townhall stage is so constructed that it is the only kind of scenery possible. The wings may be straight, like the walls of a room on each side of the stage, or they may jut out as a forest tree would. These wings must be made of the same materials as the background, but in the case of a forest or what is called a “cut scene” (named so because the leaves of the trees are all cut out at the edges) the trees may be made of a substance called compo board, used by architects, and sold wherever architects’ supplies are carried. It is heavy yet supple, of a pale golden color, and comes in such length and width that it is fine for tree trunks or for leaves and branches. It can easily be painted the desired shades. It is also good for making a little house, such as the one for Hansel and Gretel. Tall white pillars for a palace may be constructed from it. A log cabin that can easily be moved can be fashioned from it. It lends itself to all sorts of uses for amateur stage work.

The first thing to do in constructing scenery is to get the materials necessary either for the backdrop, or for the screens. For the screens, first make the wooden frame the desired height and length. Across this frame the material on which the scene is to be painted is firmly tacked. There is a prepared textile called Fabrikona that can be had at interior decorators. It makes an excellent surface for the use of pigments, and is not expensive. Its value lies in the fact that it is already prepared for use.

Common unbleached cotton is the next best fabric. This should be thoroughly wet before using, and then allowed to dry. This will keep it from stretching or sagging when it is tacked to the frame. It should be stretched across the frame as tightly as possible. It must be taut. It is now ready for the priming a coat of white paint, rather thin, and laid on evenly over the whole surface, preferably with a whitewash brush. The canvas must be primed if the paint is to stick. A material called flax canvas may also be used as a medium for painted scenery. This fabric must be treated in exactly the same way as unbleached cotton. It is much heavier, and it is also more ex-pensive. Another kind of priming can be made by dissolving whiting in water and adding size. Any house painter can advise as to the right quantity to use. Size can be purchased at any paint shop.

For painting scenery the dry powdered colors are best. They should be mixed with water and enough glue or mucilage to give adhesiveness. Here again a house painter or sign painter will be useful in suggesting the right proportions. These paints are better than the average house paints because they come in softer colors. They can be purchased by the pound, or by a fraction of the pound from any color dealer. Put in a covered earthenware

crock, or even in a covered tin pail, they will keep quite a long while without drying. It is best to keep them in a cool dark place, however. And it is advisable to use them when they are freshly mixed, if possible. They are apt to mildew.

Before the scene is actually painted there are many things to be done. In the first place, the scene must be drawn to scale on the frame. First make a drawing or tracing of the scene on a square of paper, allowing inches for feet. Then mark it off, thus: 12

Each square represents a certain number of inches, just as the squares faintly indicated on maps represent the scale of miles. The actual scene frame may then be blocked off in squares with charcoal lightly put on. Then the scene can be drawn in, and afterwards painted. This is where the services of a sign painter will be of help to the amateur who has not had much experience, as signs are very often marked off in this same way with a huge pencil.

Suppose the scale is decided, and the design drawn in. The next thing to consider is the color, which the amateur scene painter will have already selected. But in selecting it has he remembered that the color will greatly depend on the lighting of the stage? Artificial light has a way of changing the colors it is turned on. It can turn yellow into pink and purple into black, and pale blue into pale green. To avoid this, make a small screen of whatever material you are going to use, and try your colors on it by artificial lighting. If they do not seem right, then mix them by artificial light until they are right. This will often take some time to do, but it is well worth the trouble bestowed on it. The professional scene painter always makes a model (i.e., small scene) set to scale on a miniature stage, lighted and painted exactly as it is going to be. Average amateurs may not be able to do this, but they can make a miniature scene, or even a small screen, with some of the effects they expect to have in the larger scene, and use it to copy from.

12 See page 254.

In judging the color scheme by artificial light the amateur regisseur must keep in mind the costumes that are to be used against the background he is painting.

There is not just one lighting scheme to be considered, there are several, each one of them influencing the color of your scene. Since indirect lighting will not be established for a decade in most amateur auditoriums, it is well to see what can be done with footlights of different colors, or abolishing the footlights; try lighting the scene from the back and sides. If you use the red footlights to convey dawn or sunset or firelight upon your stage, it will affect the color of your scenery. If you use blue footlights for a twilight scene it will affect the color of your scenery. If you combine red and blue for grotesque witch scene effects, there is still your scenery to be reckoned with, and you should try all these colors upon it. Certain scenes, such as the Saxon interior given in this book, can be lit from the back, with the footlights quenched. Strong sunlight or rosy dawn light can be thrown from the back through the windows, or pale moonlight can flood the scene. A church or chapel can be lighted from the back through stained glass windows, throwing gorgeous color on all present. For distance or for mist, white gauze, or netting dropped between the back curtain and the audience. It should be hung close to the back curtain. For the sides of a scene where painted wings cannot be had, drape curtains of the same color as your general scene, green for a wood, brown for rocks, etc., etc.

A shallow stage and a flat background accentuate the decorative value of the costumes shown against them. The background thus remains in the background as it should. But it puts the players into high relief. From this effect the shallow stage and the flat backdrop have come to be known as “the relief theater.” Max Reinhardt and George Fuchs have had the most to do with its development abroad. It is still a comparative novelty in this country. It is admirably suited to the amateur stage, for nothing is easier to do.

In choosing the color for a scene it must be remembered that the costumes are usually chosen with reference to their background. The scene color and the costume color must harmonize. It is well to have the scene color of an inobtrusive tint so that it will not clash with the color of the costumes, and will allow greater scope in choosing them. There are occasions, of course, when scenery may be of a bright solid color. A pale orange or deep yellow wall rising straight up the back of the stage as if it towered into the limitless blue above it has been used effectively as a background for white and deep blue and jade green costumes. But it is very startling for

anything except a play laid in India, Persia, or some of the Arabian Night’s countries. Except for scenes of a startlingly picturesque kind, do not use flaring colors. Avoid backgrounds of pink or scarlet for ordinary scenes.

If you are giving an historical play, try to have your scenery historically correct. Remember that a scene antedating your play by a hundred years is better a thousand times than a scene which could not have existed until after your play. To be more explicit: If your scene is laid in the seventeenth century, it is better to play it in a sixteenth-century room than in an eighteenth-century room. The older house might have existed in the time of your play, but the eighteenth-century house never could. A little study of the types of scenery given in this book will show you what is meant. Every period had its own style of architecture, and as good an imitation of that style of architecture as possible must be given.

If you can afford only a few scenes, be exceedingly careful in your selection. Think well of the kinds of plays you are likely to give, not only at the moment, but in future productions. If you adhere to modern plays, choose modern scenery. If you wish to give romantic costume plays, choose the type of scenery necessary for them. If you wish to give fairy plays for children choose two or three scenes most in use in the fairy tales. Suppose you wish to give all three types of plays, and can only have a limited number of scenes, say four at the most. Then take a wood, a kitchen, a garden, and an interior set such as is given on page 259 that may be either drawing-room, diningroom, or throne-room, according to the way its accessories are arranged. While as wide a range as possible of the indoor and outdoor scenes in general use are pictured in this book there are a number of others not in such general use that can be copied from the following descriptions:

Oriental Scenery

AN OUTDOOR STREET SCENE TOR A BIBLE PLAY, OR PLAY FOUNDED ON THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. A shallow stage, a backdrop representing a plain brown wall with the smooth surface of cement. This wall should be darker brown in patches, and have seams as if weatherworn. The top of the wall may have a plain coping, and beyond this should be a sky strip of intense blue. A door in center of the wall, or a doorway, giving on a paler brown background that suggests other buildings without. Against such a brown wall, gorgeous costumes of the East will show up effectively. Scenes from Judith, Rahab, etc., can be given with this setting. The same wall with a brown strip instead of a sky strip, may suggest an interior. The brown strip should be of the same texture and color as the wall. A rug or

two on the floor, earthen water jars standing against the wall, and the scene may be Aladdin’s home before he found the lamp, or Ali Baba’s home. With changing of accessories it can be the inn or the stable for The Star of Bethlehem. It will fit any Christmas play along these lines. This same interior decked with handsome hanging would make a palace which could be used for a play on the subject of Joseph.

A HOUSETOP. A dark brown coping three feet high, running across the back of the stage, with a plain blue sky drop behind it will give the effect of a housetop if the people entering look down, as if looking down on the roofs of the city. Cushions, rugs, etc., should be the accessories. This scene is especially useful for plays of Arabia and Palestine.

FOR A DESERT AND OASIS. A plain sand-colored floor cloth. A backdrop or cyclorama of sky blue against which very low sand mounds appear as if at great distance, with palm trees also made small by distance. These mounds and palm trees should be painted low on the backdrop, since a vast stretch of level sand is what is to be suggested. It would even be possible to use a plain blue sky drop, and run some sand-colored cambric into mounds across the back of the stage, so as to break the sky line. Cactus plants and palms (real ones) in pots may be placed about the sides of the stage, with sand-colored material heaped about them as if sand had blown in mounds against their roots. A large pool-shaped mirror sunk near these, and a few trailing vines will give all the effect of an oasis. The jingling of camel bells can be heard off stage to give the effect of a caravan.

A BACKGROUND FOR FANTASTIC EASTERN PANTOMIMES,

DANCES, etc. The effect of flat walls rising straight up the back of the shallow stage and throwing the actors into high relief has already been noted. The wall gives the effect of towering into the limitless blue. For fantastic Eastern pantomimes this wall may be brilliant yellow, as in Sumurun, or white with two intense blue windows (cobalt blue) or parrot green with golden windows, or black, without any relief save that afforded by the brilliant costumes.

FOR A FOREST OR JUNGLE. Norman Wilkinson’s design for the forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will do well for either forest or jungle and has fine suggestions for amateurs. Mr. Wilkinson portrayed the jungle by having a shallow stage and a great back-curtain of yellowish-green strips of cloth which hung loosely from ceiling to floor, and which were backed by still other greenish-yellow strips. The strips were about a foot wide, and were used on a large stage. For a small stage the strips should be half that width. On these strips strange vines and flowers were painted, dusky orange here, a bit of sharp crimson there, a black vine with dark flowers circling in and

out of the yellowish-green tangle. It gave a remarkable effect of tropic growth, of exotic vines and flowers. It was frankly a “poster” jungle, but it was none the less effective on that account. A jungle like this might be made for the amateur stage by having yards of yellow and green cambric, cut in strips, the unglazed side toward the audience. Stitch the lengths of cambric together as you would for a curtain, and lay it on the floor. Before the strips are cut, all over the surface of the cambric stitch strange black vines and tropic flowers as described above. The flowers and vines should be average size, and the yellowish-green note should be the dominant one, flecked with the color of the vines and flowers. Never mind if in cutting you cut a flower in two, or lop off half a vine. When the whole mass sways together after cutting you will get the effect of a whole vine winding in and out. The strips should be placed three deep that is, three curtains of strips should be hung one behind the other. Only the front curtain need have tropic decoration. The other two can be yellow and green. With this use a sand-colored floor cloth. The jungle can be painted on fabrikona, but the cambric is very much cheaper, and will prove quite as effective.

MIDNIGHT

SKY ARCHED OVER THE DESERT OR THE HILLS

OF JUDEA. A scene given in one of the German theaters is full of suggestion for amateurs. The scene in question had a shallow stage, and for a backdrop a deep blue curtain of a softness to suggest depth, with silverwhite stars strewn across it. The original curtain was velvet, but for amateurs who cannot afford velvet canton flannel will do. Against this midnight sky curtain the gorgeously robed figures of the Magii, or the simply dad figures of the shepherds will stand out in sharp silhouette. Blue and white light should be used, as the scene must not be too bright. This curtain will be splendid for Christmas plays.

For books giving pictures of the Holy Land, of Arabia, of the Desert that can be copied for backgrounds, and properties, see Tissot’s Life of Christ.

EGYPTIAN SCENES. Sheer walls of brown or putty color, such as described under “A Background for Fantastic Eastern Pantomimes” will do for Egyptian scenes. Very few amateur plays are laid in Egypt, but there may be occasional need for backgrounds for dance-pantomimes.

A CHINESE SCENE. Few amateur plays are laid in China, save Aladdin and Laurence Housman’s Chinese Lantern. For Aladdin’s home the brown wall described in “Outdoor Street Scene for A Bible Play” will do. For a Chinese palace the effect of a lacquered wall may be obtained by using background and side walls of the kind described under “Backgrounds for Fantastic Eastern Pantomimes.” With these lacquered walls use painted

satin panels hung at intervals, and a few huge Chinese vases if possible. These can be obtained at any store selling Chinese art objects. The stage for any Chinese play, pantomime, or festival should be as bare as possible. The Chinese do not clutter their houses with ornamentation, Chinese scenes and properties may be copied from some of the following books. It should be remembered that flat-tinted backgrounds without perspective are best for Chinese scenes. See China the Long-Lived Empire, by E. R. Scidmore, and Letters from China by Sarah Pike Conger.

JAPANESE SCENES, INDOORS. The paper houses of Japan, with their sliding screens, can easily be copied by amateurs. The back and side walls (interior) of a Japanese house can be made by covering the frame of the room with stout wrapping paper. There should be bare floors, with Japanese cushions to sit on. A few Japanese prints on the wall, a vase on the floor filled with cherry blossoms and a Japanese home is fully furnished. Japanese screens may be used, although they are mostly manufactured for sending to other countries. The Japanese themselves do not make much use of them. For The Mikado and for one act Japanese operettas these interiors of wrapping paper will prove useful. Excellent ideas of the interior of Japanese homes can be had from Letters from Japan by Mrs. Hugh Fraser.

JAPANESE SCENES, OUTDOOR. There are a number of Japanese outdoor scenes possible for amateurs. The same backdrop may be used throughout and the objects in the foreground changed if four or five different scenes are wished. A backdrop of Fujiyama done like a Japanese poster & white mountain outlined in black against a pale blue sky. At left, two Japanese houses made large enough for the characters on the stage to enter them if desired. These houses may be built of wrapping paper, and have roofs of thatched straw. The straw that is bound with string and put round bottles in quarter yard pieces would be excellent for this. If this straw cannot be had, take hop sacking which can be had from wholesale tea and coffee houses. Japanese lanterns might swing from a short bamboo pole placed over the doors of the houses. At the right of the stage have some stunted Japanese pines in pots, and a large Japanese stone lantern. These can be rented for the occasion from a Japanese store. Still another scene can be made by using the Fujiyama backdrop, and having trellises at right and left of stage from which hang a profusion of wistaria vines. These are made of tissue paper, and can be bought from the Dennison Tissue Paper Co., New York, Chicago, or Boston. Local dry goods stores often use these vines for interior decoration. Inquirers at the stores can probably find where the wistaria vines can be bought. A cherry garden in Japan is another thing amateurs can have. The Fujiyama backdrop with cherry-trees at each side

makes a pretty stage picture. Trees stripped of their leaves so that the branches are quite bare. On these branches pink cherry blossoms are fastened. These are made of tissue paper, and easy to do. Stand the trees in tubs filled with moist sand, and cover the tubs with hop sacking and green cambric arranged so that it will look as if the trees stood in mounds. Some ordinary field stones will keep the material in place. The trees will give the effect of a cherry orchard in bloom. All these scenes are daylight scenes. For a night scene use the set first described, backdrop, houses, stunted trees, stone lantern. Darken the stage. Put a rosy light in the stone lantern and have light in the paper house which will shine through the semi-transparent walls, and throw quaint shadows on them. The lanterns swung before the door red, green, and orange should be lighted with little electric bulbs. These scenes will serve for productions of The Mikado, for dramatizations of Japanese fairy tales, and for all Japanese festivals. For scenery, see Letters from Japan, by Mrs. Hugh Fraser.

SCENES OE INDIA. Flat backgrounds of solid color can be used for plays of India such as those by Rabindranath Tagore. The Jungle and The Midnight Sky scenes previously described will also do for such plays. See The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated.

SCENES OE ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME. The Odessy for Boys and Girls, by A. J. Church, and The Story of Rome, by MacGreggor give an idea of Roman scenery, and the pillars given in the scene plates of this book will also be a help.

European scenes such as are used in fairy and fantastic plays can be found in the scene plates of the present volume. These may be augmented by the pictures in the “Peeps at Many Lands” Series.

AMERICAN SCENES most in use and suggestions for their construction will be found in the notes accompanying the scene plates in this book, but a few not included there are added here.

A STOCKADE. A shallow stage, some ten feet deep, and across the back of it a wall of logs, the logs placed in an upright position. These logs may be painted on compo board or canvas. They should be eight feet high. A blue sky drop behind the wall. Holes for musket fixe and observation about as big as a knot hole. The wall of logs may either be round like a block house, curving down to the footlights, or it may be square, like the half of a fort. The square stockade will necessitate a wall at back, and at each side. A door formed of logs may be in center background or at one side. A brown floor cloth should be used with this scene.

VILLAGE STOCKS. The backdrop representing houses, given in scene plate on page 217, and trees on page 210 for wings. In the center of

this village square wooden stocks or pillory. Under the word pillory or stocks these properties may be found in any large dictionary, and copied therefrom.

STREET SCENE IN EARLY AMERICAN TOWN. The backdrop on page 217. The exterior of inns, views of old streets, etc., etc., can be found in the following books: Life in America One Hundred Years Ago, by Gaillard Hunt; Old New England Inns, by M. C. Crawford.

Screen Scenery

In making screen scenery there are two kinds of screens to be kept in mind: the draped screen and the cardboard screen. The cardboard screen is made like a Japanese screen, with hinges, and the draped screen likewise. There should be two screens across the back of the stage and two on each side, slightly parted so that entrances are possible. Behind each of these openings there should be yet another screen, so that there will be no “gaps” to annoy the eye.

Screens of compo board can be made in many colors, and painted as desired. Of course, for the average amateur a screen will always be more or less a screen, but in the hands of a great regisseur like Gordon Craig it may convey marvelous effects. The Craig production of Hamlet at the Moscow Art Theater was accomplished with no other background than a series of cream colored screens placed in different geometrical combinations and flooded with varying lights. Panelled wood wall paper pasted on a compo board screen will give the effect of a Tudor room, and there are all manner of effects to be gained from pale yellow, jade green, deep cream, and black screens. They are inexpensive to experiment with.

Draped screens may be covered with canton flannel dyed in different colors. For pantomimes given on a shallow stage these screens make very passable backgrounds.

Curtain Scenery

A stage with the background and sides hung with curtains is what is meant by draped scenery. These curtains, unless a special effect is desired, should be all one color, cream, or blue, or rose whatever it is to be. These curtains, when parted, should show a wall draped in the same color, so that when characters enter there will be no ugly gaps. The material, too, should be the same. There should as a rule be an entrance at the back, and one at each side of the stage. The color of curtain scenery, like the color of painted scenery, should be chosen by artificial light, and with reference to the cos-

tumes that are to be used against it. For instance, a stage hung with forest green curtains may suggest a wood, and the dark green will be an excellent foil for the costumes.

Dark forest green hangings are absolutely invaluable. If only one set of hangings can be afforded, have them of this color. And denim is a good serviceable material. They can be a wood in one scene, and with a flat brown border basted to the other side they can suggest a Puritan interior. With a rose-flower cretonne border basted to them they can become a Colonial room. With a pale blue border they are a palace, With a white Grecian border they represent a room in a Grecian home. To have them suggest the interior of a peasant home is, naturally, the most difficult of all, because the scene of a rude interior with a hearth is usually meant to be conveyed. For this sort of a scene have the furniture low, a bench or two, and a somewhat squat table. Have as little furniture as possible. You wish merely to suggest the scene. Have a tallow dip for a light, and for a hearth not a hearth at all. Have a brazier with charcoal burning, as is often customary in some of the European peasant homes. This can be made by painting a tripod washstand black, and setting a candle deep in it, or burning a little red powder to give a glow. One has always to be careful of fire, but to burn a candle or powder in a bowl is generally safe. Stand the tripod where it is least likely to upset. The characters who enter can warm their hands at it as at a hearth. Of course, if it can be had, a red spot-light turned on is the best of all.

FOR A PALACE. Hangings of pale blue, or deep vivid blue. A throne chair of white and gold, set on a raised dais. But suppose a throne chair cannot be had? Then a box dais, and set on it firmly an armchair. Drape or cover this with pale blue cambric, glazed side outward, to represent satin. Place over the back of it cloth of gold, that is made by gilding burlap with radiator bronze, or a spangled scarf placed straight across the back will make a fine glitter.

A GARDEN. The same method of arrangement as for a wood or forest, with vines and paper flowers that can be bought very cheaply by the yard from the Dennison Tissue Paper Co. These vines axe fastened to the curtains as if to a little trellis. A little confetti laid beneath them gives them the effect of fallen blossoms.

A DUNGEON. Black hangings, and black or pine furniture. A black or gray floor cloth.

A STREET SCENE. This is the most difficult to convey by the means of curtains, but it can be done. Remember that you are to suggest a street scene only. Have gray unglazed cambric hangings, with the outline of doors

and quaintly shaped windows put on life-size by stitching outlines of black cambric to the gray curtains. It is better to stitch them than to paint them, for cloth that shows up paint is really rather expensive. The effect is to suggest a street, and as this kind of scenery belongs to no particular period it can be used from the tenth to the seventeenth century. It can also be used to suggest modern scenes in quaint European villages such as little outof-the-way French, German, Scandinavian or Russian towns. For a modern street scene it is, of course, quite inappropriate.

A PEASANT’S HOME. As has been suggested, braziers, benches and a table. Brown hangings and a brown floor cloth if possible. If not, green will do.

AN EASTERN PALACE. Yellow curtains, with a throne covered either in scarlet or orange.

THE DROP CURTAIN. For a drop curtain, dark green is to be preferred above all other colors. Next to this dark brown. It must be of thick material, denim or felt. Take dark blue or dark red if you cannot get green or brown. Green is best because it can be used to advantage in forest scenes after it is worn out as a curtain. Or brown curtains can be used when half worn for a floor cloth, for forest scenes.

The laws of certain cities prohibit the use of curtains in schools, on account of the fear of fire. Other schools cannot have a curtain large enough for their auditorium. This makes things awkward for a play demanding change of scene. Of course the lights can be turned off in some schools, and the scenery changed in semi-darkness; but there are schools where even this advantage cannot be had. For those who find themselves in a curtain predicament the following is suggested. Have six scenery pages, boys or girls as nearly of a height as possible. Let them wear a dark color or colors, and be sure their shoes and stockings are black. Have couch covers, portieres or strips of cloth fastened to curtain rods. Let the pages pass quickly to the front of the stage as soon as the scene closes, holding these improvised screens between changing scene and audience till the scenery is moved.

For a church scene have colored dark hangings. An offertory table with a long straight centerpiece of white, candles at either end and in the center.

Be careful of your stage furnishing. It can do much to make or mar a play. See that your chairs and tables are of the period described in the text.

If your play is Greek, study the lines of Greek benches or seats. You can have them made very inexpensively, and painted white. Never under any circumstances use modern furniture in Greek plays.

For your interior scenes, if your play is laid in early Saxon times, in the days of Robin Hood, or the Pilgrim Fathers, in fact in any century up to the

eighteenth, you are safe in using heavy black mission furniture with upright chairs and plain tables. The mission furniture may not fit the period in detail, but it is unobtrusive, has simple lines and the massiveness of the early furniture. Never use bright colored furniture unless so directed in the text of the play.

Use ornaments very sparingly unless called for. They clutter your scene. Remember that tablecloths, white or silken, were not in general use till the eighteenth century. Even then they were used for meals, and not for tables in drawing rooms or libraries. These were polished and bare. Do not use “tidies” or “throws” unless your scene is laid in America at the time of the Civil War, or unless you wish to suggest an old-fashioned farmhouse interior. Do not use cushions of varigated colors unless your scene is Japanese. Too many bright and varied colors distract the eye. Use dim, quiet colors. In fact, have the same taste in your scenes that you would in household decoration. Choose your accessories with reference to the color of your background. Try to work out your scene. setting in one or two quiet colors. It is the actors, not the scene, that you wish to bring before the eye of the audience.

Have as little furniture on the stage as possible. Use a floor cloth, or if this is not obtainable, a bare floor with or without a fur rug. Do not put a leopard skin in the home of a Danish peasant, as one amateur producer did. Beware how you use Persian rugs. Few amateur plays are laid in Persia. Above all, beware of brightly colored strips of carpet, unless you wish your scene to be comic or grotesque.

An eighteenth-century interior may be light in color. Have spindlelegged furniture, cretonne hangings, and soft-colored cushions. With this century came in lacquered tables and trays.

Never, unless your scene setting actually requires it, set a scene in a pink or red room. It will kill the color of most of your costumes. “Ah,” cries some unfortunate producer, “what if you are in a little town where the only interior scene is red? What are you going to do?” In this case use black or dark furniture and try to offset it. If you are in a place where you must choose between a red dining-room set, or a “parlor” set ornate with gilt and bright wallpaper, when what you need is the interior of a peasant’s home, turn your scenery inside out. The white back and the wooden props will look like a crude whitewashed home. If the back is only a little yellowish or dirty, you are saved. If you are allowed to tack brown wallpaper (plain) to the back of the set, you can make an excellent peasant hut out of it, or an interior that will do for a Puritan living room, or an eighteenth-century kitchen.

CHAPTER 4 Properties and How to Make Them

Use care in the selection of your properties. Study your text. Avoid anachronisms. Do not use muskets and pipes in a scene that is laid before muskets were invented and tobacco discovered. Do not use modern lamps to light a mediaeval scene. Do not use modern musical instruments in a scene that is laid in Grecian or mediaeval times. These are some of the average mistakes. Remember that penholders and pens are a modern invention. Use quill pens and sand for plays whose scenes are laid before the early nineteenth century. Do not use clocks in Greek or early Saxon scenes. If your characters are writing or sending letters in the time when parchment was used, have the paper yellowed to look like parchment. Do not have a modern fireplace in a peasant’s home where the hearth would naturally be built of stone. Do not use modern dishes in mediaeval scenes. Buy paper plates and cover them with colored tissue paper, or paint them till they resemble the kind of platters you need. Brown will represent earthenware. Gold and silver for fairy palaces can be made by gilding them over or covering them with gold paper. Remember that forks and spoons were not in popular use in the days of Robin Hood Fingers and knives did the required work. The hearth was used for cooking. Beware of modern cooking utensils in fairy, Puritan or Colonial scenes. “Gadzooks” and modern coffee pots do not go together. Beware of modem frying pans for hearthstone scenes. Use iron skillets instead. A kettle for these scenes is always permissible, but if it is a peasant scene, see that it is not the too shining brass of the tea kettle of the afternoon tea table. Remember that coal fires are modern. If you are having a fairy peasant scene use wood instead. Use braziers where the scenes require it. They are always effective; and can be made by blacking a tripod washbowl, and lighting a little red fire powder in it, or some joss sticks which will give a thin blue smoke. Or a red electric bulb can be used in it if there is no spot light.

Be careful of your lighting. The Greeks had torches when they wanted a bright light, and small, bowl-shaped lamps with a wick and oil for smaller illuminations. Gold cardboard torches from which stream slashed strips of flame-colored tissue paper are safe substitutes. The Saxons and early

AND HOW TO MAKE THEM

English had rush-lights and bowl lamps. A bowl that looks like earthenware, with the stub of a candle in it, will do. In mediaeval times swinging lamps and candles were for the rich: while the humble were content with tallow dips only.

Don’t use the spinning wheel before the spinning wheel was invented, just because it is decorative. Don’t use a modern glass “tumbler” for your doublet and hose hero to drink from. A cheap glass goblet covered with gold paper will look like a gold goblet.

If possible have your youthful players make their own properties. Take, for instance, a fallen tree trunk, or a log for a forest scene. It can be made by fastening together two small vinegar barrels, and covering them with green and brown burlap to represent bark and moss. Or it can be covered with brown burlap and gray lichen real lichen fastened to it with strong glue. Such a stage property as this can be used again and again. And the boy who went to the outlying fields or suburbs to get the moss may he not know something of nature’s secrets that he had not known before? And may not the eager quest bring him hours of entire happiness? A seventeenth-century broom can be made by tying an armful of hazel or willow switches to an old broom handle. The browner and sturdier these twigs are the better. This broom material can be gathered at the same time as the moss.

Stimulate initiative and invention wherever possible. A round collar box is only a collar box until you use it for an earthen bowl. A white cardboard shoe box is cut down a little, covered with black tissue paper, has a little yellow pane inserted in each side, and a curtain ring for a handle. Behold a lantern for a Yankee minute-man, or Paul Revere, or anyone else who wants to use it.

Remarkable stage furniture can be made from wooden boxes of all sizes. A packing case makes a dais. Several boxes nailed together and stained brown will make a peasant’s cupboard. 13

Three boxes nailed together like this П will make a hearth. If it is to be a mediaeval or fairy tale hearth, cover it with cheap gray cambric, bulked to look like stone, and marked with splotches of white and brown chalk. Be sure you turn the unglazed side of the cambric outward. Use chalk because paint will not show up well on cambric. A brick fireplace for a modern scene can be made in the same way, covering the boxes with brick chimney paper that can be bought at Dennison’s Tissue Paper Co., Boston, Chicago, or New York. One of their catalogues will prove invaluable to directors living

13 See Box Furniture, by Louise Brigham.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

in the country. A narrow box on rockers, stained brown, becomes a Puritan or eighteenth century cradle. Gilded and hooded it is the cradle of a royal Princess. Couch seats can be made from boxes, only be sure that they are secure.

CHAPTER 5

European Costumes for Adults

Costume Plate 1

(For historical or mythological play, or pageant)

GRECIAN COSTUME for man that by slight changes can become ROMAN, SAXON, or BIBLICAL.

GRECIAN COSTUME. Use this costume as a basis. Put a Grecian border round neck, sleeves, and hem. With this use a chalmys described on page 119 under “Ancient Greek Costume.” For a Greek soldier, body armor, an aegis, i.e., goatskin shield, the beautifully shaped Greek helmet, a cloak and a long spear. An excellent picture of Greek warrior’s costume can be found under the picture of Mars in most large dictionaries.

Materials. Linen and wool, which can be imitated in muslin and woolen batiste.

Colors. White was used more generally than colors, particularly for soldiers. In colors ox-blood red, yellow, blue, and cream. For details see “Ancient Greek Costume,” page 119.

ROMAN COSTUME. This can form the basis for a Roman costume for men and boys. For men past their first youth it should fall to the ankles, and for young nobles it should be the same length. See pictures of Julius Caesar. Over it should be draped the toga. For making toga see “Ancient Roman Costume” on page 125. A Roman soldier may wear this as an under tunic, and over it body armor, either metal or leather, but leather can be easily imitated by leatherette. This leather armor was called Cerium, and pictures of it can be found in Webster’s dictionary under that word. There should be a helmet, a round shield, a spear. Read page 120 for greater detail.

SAXON COSTUME. This tunic can be worn as it stands for a Saxon costume, with a cord about the waist From first to fifth centuries by nobles and peasants, and from fifth to tenth centuries by peasants only. See “Costumes of the Britons,” under the early centuries in the chapter on Costumes. Materials and colors will be suggested there.

BIBLICAL COSTUME. This tunic will do for youths and boys in Biblical plays, for old men the tunic should come to the ankle. It should

EUROPEAN COSTUMES FOR ADULTS

have no border. For detail see “Oriental Costumes,” in chapter on Costumes.

Costume Plate 2

(For plays, pageants and processions)

GRECIAN COSTUME. With changes, BIBLICAL COSTUME. ROMAN COSTUME. EARLY SAXON COSTUME. May also be a costume for a GODDESS, and for MYTHOLOGICAL and SYMBOLIC characters, such as INDUSTRIES and STATES and COUNTRIES, etc.

GREEK COSTUME. This is not a purely Grecian costume as it is given in the plate; it is more fanciful and symbolic. For a Grecian costume have short semi-fitted sleeves, coming to the elbow. The rest of the costume is correct. There may be a Grecian border round the hem of the dress if desired. The colors may be bright blue, ox-blood red, corn-yellow and white. The Greeks had no pastel colors. The materials are linen or wool, that can be copied in cashmere, woolen batiste, cheesecloth and cotton crepe. The border may be in blue or yellow, or black on white. Or it may be a gold or silver border, for state occasions.

For further description of what may be worn, see chapter on Costumes, under “Grecian Costume,” For Grecian costume for young girl or very little girl, see “Fairy Costume,” page 226, a costume which must be used without the fairy wings.

BIBLICAL COSTUME. Omit the flowing sleeves, and have short semifitted sleeves coming to a line a little above the elbow. The tunic should come to the ankles. The Grecian bands crossed at the breast should be omitted. Wind a striped mantle about the size and length of an ordinary couch cover about the head and shoulders, letting it fall to the ankles. The hair must flow loose about the shoulders. For further description of color and material, look under “Oriental Costumes,” page 117.

ROMAN COSTUME. For a Roman matron omit the Grecian bands. The robe may either have plain bands crossed on the breast, or no bands at all. The sleeves should be semi-fitted and come to the elbow. This robe may form an under tunic, if desired, and over it may be placed another tunic, coming to the knee. Both under tunic and over tunic must be of the softest, most pliable material, and they should be scant, so as to avoid bunchiness.

A plain border may be worn with the Roman costume, but never a Grecian border. For a young Roman girl or little girl, see “Fairy Costume,” page 226, without the wings. For further instructions on Roman costume see “Ancient Roman Costume,” page 120.

SAXON COSTUME. This costume, with certain changes, may be made to do for an early Saxon costume. It should be made into a tunic, coming to the ankles, and the sleeves should be semi-fitted elbow sleeves. There should be no border and no Grecian band crossed on the breast, but a white cord may be crossed, if desired, or the dress may be a tunic falling straight from neck to hem. A mantle in some solid color, made the length and breadth of a couch cover, may be draped about the body for outdoor wear. This may be worn from the first to the fourth century. See Costumes of Great Britain on page 121.

GODDESS COSTUME. This costume as it stands, changed according to pictures of mythology, a helmet and shield for Athena, and so forth. See notes on symbolic costumes, page 53. It should be made in the same colors and materials as those given under Grecian Woman, if it is a Grecian Goddess, If it is a Roman Goddess, copy Roman pictures.

MYTHOLOGIC and SYMBOLIC characters will be costumed in this robe exactly as it stands, though greater latitude may be allowed as to color and material If used for German Mythology the costumes should be copied after illustrated editions of the Wagnerian Ring. For Scandinavian and Norse Mythology copy the pictures of the Norse Goddesses. For symbolic figures of states and cities, have the robe white, and an over-robe of the city or state color attached to the shoulders, and falling to the ground. In the case of countries, do not use the flag to drape the symbolic figure, or even use it as a cloak. This is forbidden by law. A flag of the country carried in the hand, and perhaps a robe flowered with the country’s flower may fall from the shoulder. For England a robe with red roses, for France golden lilies, or white lilies on royal blue, for Germany the cornflower, for Ireland, Irish green and gold shamrocks, etc., etc.

COLUMBIA. White robe, exactly as it is here, the Greek border changed to a border of red, white and blue, or a border of stars. A crown of stars. A robe made of three broad stripes of red, white and blue fastened at the shoulders with buckles in the shape of eagles. Carries the Stars and Stripes on a staff in her hand.

LIBERTY. The white robe given in the picture, with a white cord crossing where the Greek border now is. A red liberty cap such as is seen on the head of Liberty on a dollar. A robe of red, white, and blue as described for COLUMBIA, or a deep blue robe covered with white stars. Either robe should fall from the shoulders to the edge of the dress. Liberty should carry a gold torch, with red and yellow tissue paper flames.

EUROPEAN COSTUMES FOR ADULTS

Costume Plate 3

(Costume that can be used for plays, pageants and tableaux)

MONK’S COSTUME OF NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

Can be used from the earliest times A. D. to the present, in England, France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain. If a monk of a particular order is desired, then look up monk’s dress or ecclesiastical dress in illustrated books, and put the necessary changes.

Materials. Serge.

Color. Black, gray, brown, white, according to the monk’s order.

A FRIAR’S COSTUME for Robin Hood, and such plays, would have the head bare, and tonsured, and the hood hanging down the back, not over the face. A “jolly friar” would be plumper than this grave monk.

Costume Plate 4

(For plays and pageants of mediaeval history)

MAN IN ARMOR. ARTHURIAN KNIGHT. CRUSADER, ETC.

(This picture is taken from the statue of James Van Artveld, 13001345.)

Period. This type of armor was worn from the fifth to the fifteenth century, and as armor is very difficult for amateurs to manage, this chain armor may be substituted for the heavier armor, so that it will include Arthur and his Knights, and the Crusaders.

Countries. Can be used for England (Cornwall), Wales, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Flanders.

Color. This armor is silver gray. The tunic is white. The belt may be of colored leather, russet, scarlet, blue. Or it may be of metal, or silver or gold. The border may be black, or match the leather belt in color.

ARTHURIAN KNIGHT. For an Arthurian Knight of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries have chain armor, with blue and gold or scarlet and gold belt and sword strap. Or have a tunic of rich color, and no belt, and the sword carried. With the white tunic the cloak may be green, or scarlet, or blue any appropriate color, but no pastel shade. He should wear a casque see picture in any large dictionary, and he should have a long oval shield with a coat of arms on it.

CRUSADER. The white tunic should come to the knee and should be sleeveless. On the breast should be a large red cross. He should not wear the cloak except when wrapped around him for cold weather. The cloak can be carried by his squire, a lad dressed in a tabard. See page 123.

MEDIAEVAL MAN IN ARMOR. The costume for a mediaeval man in armor is exactly right as it stands from the eighth to the fifteenth century.

For further detail, and list of books showing both chain and iron armor, see Chapter on Costumes under “Costumes of Great Britian.”

Materials. The armor was metal, the tunic linen, the belt metal covered, or leather, or cloth of gold. The mantle of wool, in the early centuries, and in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth, it might be silk or velvet, if desired. The armor can be made by stitching tin disks, or silver paper disks, or disks made of silver-gilt canvas to a union suit. The undersleeve and the armor for the instep may be made of the gray heavy paper used for putting under carpets.

The tunic may be made of white linen. It must be thick. The cloak can be made of canton flannel which now comes in good shades, or of woolen batiste.

The belt may be made of leatherette to simulate leather. Or of silver gray cloth for metal. Or of cloth of silver or gold. This can be cheaply made by gilding burlap with radiator bronze.

Costume Plate 5

(For mediaeval play, pageant or festival)

ROBIN HOOD COSTUME. YEOMAN COSTUME. With changes, A MEDIAEVAL PEASANT COSTUME. COSTUME FOR FAIRY PRINCE OR FOLK TALE HERO.

Period. From the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century. Countries. England, France, Italy, and Germany. Color. It may be used in greens, browns, blues, or scarlets, according to which is appropriate. Plum color, and ox-blood red also worn.

Materials. For suit and cloak, canton flannel, or woolen batiste, or cloth. The tights may be silk, or a dyed union suit. The tall soft shoes with rolled over tops can be made from men’s socks, either black or dyed to match the suit. The hat is felt. The girdle and pouch are of leather, and can be imitated in leatherette.

ROBIN HOOD. A suit of forest green, with shoes and tights to match. A forest green hat and cloak. Belt and pouch of brown leather. The same for his Merry Men. The tunic was still greatly worn, and this coat may be made like a tunic, if desired, and the hat can be a green cap with a quill in it.

YEOMAN COSTUME. Drop the leather pouch and cloak, and the horn, and place on his head a round cap with or without a quill, or a round

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

peaked cap. Have the costume in deep blue or leaf brown, or black. Instead of a coat, a tunic the same length may be worn.

MEDIEVAL PEASANT. The belt and pouch, cap and cloak and horn would be omitted, and the costume would be serge, dark blue or brown.

FAIRY PRINCE. The colors could be purple or scarlet, or vivid blue with a green cloak and black shoes. The pouch would be omitted, and the belt would be cloth of gold studded with jewels. See Chapter on Costumes.

Children’s Costume of this period can be found in Costume Plate 42.

Costume Plate 6

(For mediaeval play, pageant or festival, or for folk dance. For operettas such as amateur versions of Robin Hood, etc. For old English May day festivals)

WOMAN’S PEASANT OR MAID MARIAN COSTUME. JEAN D’ARC PEASANT.

Period. From the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. May be the basis for costumes of other centuries if the head covering is removed.

Countries. England, Flanders, Germany, France, Italy, Holland.

Color. May be brown, blue, black, red, plum, gray. Head covering may match dress or be of contrasting color. Bodice and skirt should be of the same color. Soft shoes should be gray or brown.

Materials. The dress of mediaeval peasants was serge. If this is too heavy for festivals or pageants, or too inexpensive, have cambric, with the unglazed side worn outward, or plain chalke. Do not put peasants into pastel shades or light blue and pale green. They did not wear such colors. Shoes of oilcloth, or cloth.

MAID MARIAN. Leaf brown costume, with green head covering, and green leather belt and pouch bag. Leaf brown must be worn by Marion for the same reason that Robin Hood and his Merry Men wore green so that their enemies might not see them flitting through the greenwood.

PEASANT WOMAN. The average peasant woman may wear the hues described under Color, in a previous paragraph. Where there is a crowd of peasants on the stage the producer should try to have as great a variety of plain dark colors as possible, with here and there a flash of orange or scarlet.

JEANNE D’ARC PEASANT DRESS. Jeanne should be without the head covering and the dress should be gray or brown. This dress without the head covering and with a white apron may be worn by peasant women in the latter part of the fifteenth and all of the sixteenth centuries. See chapter on Costumes.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Is good for peasants in The Pied Piper.

Children Costumes. For children’s costumes see Costume Plate 42.

Costume Plate 7

(For historical or fanciful plays, fairy plays, pageants and festivals)

MEDIAEVAL PRINCE or PEASANT. FAIRY PRINCE. MEDIAEVAL COURTIER.

Period. Twelfth to Fifteenth Century. Countries. England, France, Ireland, Flanders, Holland, Italy, Germany. Colors. In any solid color save light or pastel shades. May be brocade for nobles.

Materials. For nobles, silk tights, silk, satin, or velvet tunic. Belt of leather, gilded, or cloth of silver with jewels. Soft leather or brocade shoes. For peasants the material would be serge, but no peasant might wear the long “dagged” oversleeve. The shoes, tights and belt of a peasant would be coarse, and he would have no sword.

MEDIAEVAL PRINCE. Purple tunic. Gold belt. Cloth of gold under sleeves, and dagged sleeve lined in yellow. Purple tights and shoes. To make brocade shoes for prince or nobles, use furniture tapestry. Soft leather shoes may be simulated by cutting off the tops of old shoes, if they have no “patent tips.”

MEDIAEVAL PEASANT. Blue, dark green or brown serge. Leather belt. No trimming on tunic. No dagged “over-sleeve.” The sleeve of a white unbleached linen shirt should come through the armhole, or the tunic would simply have a tight sleeve of its own material. Brown soft shoes for the peasant might be made of oilcloth.

A KING OR COURTIER might wear a long tunic, coming to the ankle and open down the front over a short under tunic. The costume would have the same sleeves, belt, tights and shoes as in the picture. The long tunic would be the one thing different. This would give variety to the scene. The long tunic might be edged with fur, or if the long tunic were a plain color it might have a handsome brocade border. It is variety in cut that gives interest to a scene, but the variety must be authentic.

Children’s Costume of this period. See Costume Plate 42.

Costume Plate 8

(For plays, either historic, fairy or fanciful, and for pageants and festivals, and antique masques)

COURT LADY OR QUEEN COSTUME. FAIRY PLAY COSTUME. SLEEPING BEAUTY. COURT OF JEANNE D’ARC COSTUME.

Period. Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century with the hennin, or peaked hat. Without the peaked hat, and with a veil bound about the head with a circlet, Tenth to Thirteenth Century.

Color. Any rich color, saffron, deep blue, royal purple, white, crimson, and rich brocade for court costume. For fairy tales lighter colors may be used. The trimming may be ermine, sable, gold, silver or pearls. See Chapter on Costumes.

Materials. Silk, satin, brocade, velvet. Can be imitated by silkoline, glazed cambric, heavy cretonnes or cotton tapestry, and deep colored canton flannel for velvet. The hat should be made of white stiff cambric, and covered with silk, or gold or silver tissue. The veil may be chiffon, or an automobile veil will do. The hennin need not match the dress, but it must harmonize with it. A gold hennin with a purple dress, a silver hennin with a green dress. White hennins went with all colors and were much worn. See Jeanne d’Arc, by Boutet de Monvel.

COURT LADIES. Court ladies wore rich colors, but not pastel shades.

QUEEN. A queen would wear white, or purple, or scarlet and gold. No one but those of royal blood might wear purple in England. See Chapter on Costumes.

FAIRY PLAYS, SLEEPING BEAUTY, etc. Have soft pastel colors for these. The Sleeping Beauty might wear pale rose pink satin and silver. For Children’s Costumes of this period, see Costume Plate 42.

Costume Plate 9

(For historical plays, pageants, festivals, masques)

SHAKESPEARE. COLUMBUS. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. HENRY EIGHTH OF ENGLAND. FRANCIS FIRST OF FRANCE. FAIRY TALE KING. THE PRINCE IN CINDERELLA.

Period. The Sixteenth Century, or more strictly speaking, 1490 to 1600. Color. For historical plays, plain, rich colors, rather dark, with the cloak lined in gay silk or satin. For Fairy plays, pastel colors may be used. The cloak suit and foot gear are generally of the same color, the cloak is lined with a contrasting color. Thus the suit might be royal blue, and the cloak

ADULTS

lined in orange, or white. The doublet may be slashed with a contrasting color, if desired. The suit here is given without the slashing, as it is easier for amateurs to copy.

Materials. The doublet and cloak were made of brocade or velvet. The cloak was lined in satin. The hose and shoes were of fine material, the shoes velvet or soft leather, the hose silk. The hat was velvet, and had a curled plume a short plume. The ruff was sheer lawn. The scabbard of the sword was often gold, encrusted with gems if the wearer was a king.

SHAKESPEARE. Brown velvet suit, and hose. The cloak lined in corn yellow.

COLUMBUS. Plum colored velvet suit, the cloak lined in saffron, and the doublet slashed with the same.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. Bright blue velvet suit, the cloak lined in white satin.

HENRY EIGHTH. Traditional costume of black velvet, the cloak lined in brilliant scarlet.

FRANCIS FIRST OF FRANCE. Purple brocade, the cloak lined in white.

FAIRY TALE KING. Gray brocade, the cloak lined in ermine.

FAIRY TALE PRINCE. Green brocade, the cloak lined in pale pink satin.

Children’s Costumes. The costumes for children of the court of this period were like those of their elders. Boys of the court wore a costume like this, without the cloak. Royal pages wore the cloak or a tabard. See page 127.

Costume Plate 10

(For historical and fantastic plays, and for pageants and festivals)

COURT LADY. QUEEN ELIZABETH. CINDERELLA AT THE BALL, ETC.

Period. The Sixteenth Century (1490-1600). Countries. England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Flanders.

Color. The dress was almost always of a different color from the under petticoat. Very often the dress was brocade, and the petticoat plain. Or both petticoat and dress might be the same color if desired. A black brocade dress, opening on a petticoat of pale pint, with a border of black and gold. Or a blue and gold brocade, opening on a petticoat of the same, without a border. The sleeves were slashed with a different color from the dress. That

is, if the dress was moss-green, the sleeves would be slashed with pink satin, or silver brocade or white. The ruff was always white.

Materials. Silks, satins and brocades were in vogue, with a ruffle of gauze at the wrist, and point lace ruffs. See chapter on Costuming. Glazed cambric, cotton tapestry, will imitate these.

COURT LADY. Might wear any of the colors suggested under the caption Color.

QUEEN ELIZABETH. Purple brocade, trimmed with yellow and gold embroidery. Sleeves slashed with yellow satin. The bodice outlined in ermine. Pearls bound about her hair. A striking white lace collar.

CINDERELLA AT THE BALL. Pale pink brocade, with under petticoat of pale blue satin, embroidered with silver and pearls. Sleeves slashed with white. Silver gauze at wrists. This is a court costume; for a house dress of the same period, bring the tight bodice up to the neck, and finish with a ruff of white gauze going all the way round the neck.

CHILDREN. Little girls of the nobility wore dresses exactly like this, but their ruff might be lower. See Chapter on Costuming.

PEASANTS. For peasants of this period, see page 127.

CHAPTER 6

American and English Costumes for Adults and Children

Costume Plate 11

(For Indian plays, Indian pageants, and for American historical pageants. For a festival of nations)

INDIAN CHIEF. HIAWATHA, if changes are made. INDIAN BRAVE.

Period. Early Seventeenth Century to the present. Colors. Khaki-tan. Fringe of the same. Red, green, yellow beadwork on tunic and moccasins.

Material. The material is dressed deerskin in reality, but it can be copied by having khaki instead, with beads in a design. The moccasins may be khaki, beaded and painted, or tan tennis shoes beaded with fringe. The real moccasins are best if they can be had. The headdress must be of eagle’s feathers, which can be imitated by long hen’s feathers, or quills.

INDIAN CHIEF. The same as in picture.

HIAWATHA. The same as in picture, if so desired, but in reality Hiawatha wore a loin cloth, and great chains of bear’s teeth and wampum.

INDIAN BRAVE. Indian brave would not wear the same head dress as the chieftain. He would wear a bead band bound across his brows, and a single quill or two or three quills standing up in the back.

For full description of Indian costumes, beadwork, blankets, wigwams and all Indian properties, see chapter on Costumes in play of Pocahontas in Patriotic Plays and Pageants, by C. D. Mackay. For other books giving pictures of costumes, see Chapter on Costumes in this volume.

Costume Plate 12

(For plays, pageants, festivals of the nations)

PRINCESS. INDIAN GIRL. SQUAW. POCAHONTAS. This dress is primarily for an Indian Princess. Beading of red, white and turquoise blue. Turquoise blue headband. Red braid bands. The actual

Indian Maiden or Princess never wore feathers or quills of any sort only an Indian headband, beaded.

INDIAN PRINCESS. This costume in khaki, as the tan shade looks like dressed deerskin. The tunic must be made without buttons, and slip on over the head. A feathered headband must not be worn. Instead a beaded headband. The rest of the costume is accurate for a Princess. Have the stockings tan colored to match the moccasins. Or better yet, let the girl have her ankles bare and stain them brown. The costume for a Princess may be heavily beaded.

INDIAN GIRL. This costume, made tunic fashion, of the same material as described for Princess, but without beading.

SQUAW. The same as for Indian Maiden. The Squaw would have a bright colored blanket. This may be made of canton flannel, in gay strips. (See descriptions for Princess Pocahontas in Patriotic Plays and Pageants, by C. D. Mackay.)

POCAHONTAS. The traditional dress of Pocahontas was white deerskin which can be imitated by white canton flannel, heavy beading on costume of blue and scarlet.

Indian hair can be made by cutting black cheesecloth into strips, and braiding it. It should be fastened to a skullcap of black cheesecloth, and hang from it. A beaded headband worn with this covers up any deficiencies. This will solve the problem for blonde girls who need black Indian hair.

See that the faces, arms, necks and ankles of the Indian girls are stained brown. There is nothing more ridiculous than a “white” Indian.

Costume Plate 13

(For plays, pageants, festivals and in especial for American pageants)

INDIAN BOY.

Period. The Seventeenth Century to the present.

Color. Khaki.

Material. Khaki or tan colored cambric, or denim.

INDIAN BOY. Indian boys wore their own skin in summer, with a breech clout and moccasins. The hair was worn lank. No feathers were permitted. The skin must be stained brown. Where this is not possible, have a light weight union suit, dyed brown. In dyeing it, allow for possible shrinkage. It is best to experiment with one suit before attempting suits in quantities. Painted and beaded brown bathing shoes, or beaded sneakers can be used, where moccasins cannot be had. For winter scenes, use the fringed trimming and trousers of tan color. Remember that Indian boys were not

permitted as much beading as were the braves.

Costume Plate 14

(For historical plays and pageants, in especial American historical pageants)

PURITAN. PILGRIM. ROUNDHEAD. With certain changes, DUTCH SETTLER IN NEW AMSTERDAM, or QUAKER.

Period. The seventeenth century.

Countries. England, America, Holland.

Color. Gray, brown, black, dark blue, very dark plum, dark brown.

Material. Serge or woolen cloth. Never silk or satin. See chapter on Costumes.

PURITAN. Dark blue, brown, plum, or black suit and cloak, made of serge. Black hat. White collar and cuffs. Black shoes and stockings. If gloves are worn they are brown gauntlets. See chapter on Costumes.

PILGRIM. The same as Puritan.

ROUNDHEAD, or follower of Cromwell in England. The same dress as for PURITAN.

DUTCH SETTLER. The Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam, and up and down the Mohawk valley wore the same dress as the Pilgrim, save that it might be in brighter colors, and velvet and silk might be worn, though as the Dutch were thrifty, it was only worn for best. The Dutch wore the “pork pie” hat, but its brim was straighter than the Puritan, QUAKER. This costume in Quaker gray, with a “William Penn” hat (See pictures of William Penn.)

CHILDREN. The attire of children was similar to that of their elders, though they wore no long cloaks. Boys did not wear the pork pie hat, they had oftener a small entirely round black cap. Usually they went bareheaded. CAVALIER, The Cavalier was the exact opposite of the Puritan, and Cavalier costumes are fully described on page 130. But in imagination this Puritan costume may be made the model for a Cavalier costume by the following changes: Have a Cavalier wide-brimmed hat turned up at the side with a buckle. Have a sweeping plume. Have long love locks or ringlets sweeping over the shoulders instead of the short hair in the picture. Have the coat sleeveless and of leather, and the cuffs and collar of pointed lace. Have the shirt of the finest linen with bishop sleeves. Have the breeches of gay velvet, with huge rosettes and hanging ribbons at the knee band. Have the stockings of silk and the shoes of fine leather, or else have high leather boots. Have a velvet cloak, and line it in violet or green, or scarlet silk.

Then you will have a full-fledged Cavalier. See page 130.

CHILDREN OF CAVALIERS (ROYALISTS). Boys wore the same as the Cavaliers only in miniature. See page 130.

Costume Plate 15

(For play, pageant in especial an American historical pageant or a festival)

PILGRIM. PURITAN. PRISCILLA. ROSE OF PLYMOUTH TOWN.

Materials, Serge. Homespun woolen. Imitated in canton flannel for winter or cambric for summer.

Colors. White lawn kerchief and cuffs (never lace). White lawn cap. Dress may be black, brown, gray, blue, deep red, deep plum, or tan.

Costume Plate 16

(For historical play or pageant, in especial for American historical pageants or festivals)

MYLES STANDISH. PILGRIM SOLDIER. PURITAN SOLDIER. A ROUNDHEAD SOLDIER. CARDINAL RICHELIEU’S GUARD. With certain changes can be CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH or ELIZABETHAN SOLDIER.

Period. 1590-1700.

Countries. America, England, France, Italy, Holland, Flanders, Spain.

Color. The color of the coat and breeches worn tinder the armor would be determined by the country of the wearer. The armor would be black or steel gray. The ruff white. The gauntlets brown.

Material. Coat and breeches worn tinder the armor would be serge or cloth. In some instances the coat would be leather and the breeches serge. The shoes leather and the stockings stout woolen ones woven or knitted. The gauntlets are leather. The ruff is lawn.

MYLES STANDISH. Brown serge breeches. Brown leather coat. Brown shoes and stockings. Brown gauntlets. He wears a white Pilgrim collar, made of lawn, but never a ruff. Armor the same as any armor.

PILGRIM SOLDIER. Same as Myles Standish.

PURITAN MAN AT ARMS. Brown or blue serge. Much the same as Myles Standish.

A ROUNDHEAD SOLDIER. The same as Myles Standish.

CARDINAL RICHELIEU’S GUARD. Dull crimson cloth. Dark brown

shoes and stockings. Everything the same as in the accompanying costume plate except the brown leather gauntlets which are fringed.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. Exactly the same type of armor, but instead of low shoes and woolen stockings, he wears boots that come to the knee. Plum colored suit.

ELIZABETHAN SOLDIER. The same as in costume plate, save that the breeches may be slashed with a different color red slashed with white.

Costume Plate 17

(For historical play, or pageant. Especially American historical pageant)

COURT LADY. ROYALIST. AMERICAN COLONIST. ANNE OF AUSTRIA.

Countries. America, in the South, and in New York, not in New England. In England, France, Holland, Flanders, Spain, Italy.

Period. The Seventeenth Century (1600-1690).

Colors. Any solid color in any shade except pastel shades. Crimson, tawny brown, blue, green, gray, black. The collar and cuffs were always white.

Materials. For court ladies, velvet, satin and silk. Brocade was not now so much worn. For everyday wear, woolen cloth and serge. The bodice might or might not have a border, as desired. The collar and duffs would be plain lawn for a serge dress but it must be sheer lawn. For a silk or satin dress they should be of the finest lace. With a court dress the cap might be velvet, or satin. Or it might be cloth of silver or gold, trimmed with pearls, or edged with a narrow rim of ermine. For royal persons the border on the bodice might be ermine or miniver. See Chapter on Costumes.

COURT LADY. For dress of any court lady, see preceding paragraphs.

ROYALIST. The followers of King Charles in England were called Royalists, and this is the dress of a Royalist lady.

AMERICAN COLONIST. For English women who came to America, and who were not Pilgrims or Puritans, this dress in cloth or serge, in quiet colors, with lawn cuffs and sleeves. For great occasions satin or velvet.

ANNE OF AUSTRIA. This costume in rich materials, was that worn at the court of Louis XIII of France. For Anne of Austria, or her ladies, it should be as gorgeous as possible.

CHILDREN. Children of any court wore what their elders wore. Little girls would wear a costume like this, with just as long a skirt, and their hair tucked under a cap. See page 131.

Costume Plate 18

(American historical pageant, American history play. Dutch pantomime or festival. Also, after changes have been made, fairy or folk play)

DUTCH SETTLER. GIRL OF HOLLAND. With certain changes

PEASANT IN FOLK or FAIRY PLAY for CHILDREN.

DUTCH SETTLER. This was the everyday attire worn by the wives and daughters of settlers in New Amsterdam and the Mohawk valley. The costume may be worn from 1600 to the present.

Color. Black bodice. White guimp. Skirt of the most brilliant hues, either striped or plain. White apron with colored patches. White cap embroidered in bright hues. This was everyday attire, and in Holland is still everyday attire. For best a velvet bodice, a finer skirt, and a lace cap and apron.

Materials. The skirt may be homespun, or coarse muslin for everyday, and the bodice of homespun or serge. The guimpe of unbleached muslin. The cap of white muslin embroidered. The apron white muslin patched with gay muslin. Or it may not be patched at all. No well brought up Dutch girl would wear a patched apron to market. This would only be worn in her own dooryard, or in a hasty moment when she ran to watch a man being put in the stocks. For best the bodice is velvet, the guimpe fine lawn, the skirt bright blue, red, tulip yellow, green, startling violet, or purple. The apron is lace, and can be made from an old-fashioned lace window curtain with a sprawling pattern on it. The cap was also white lace on these occasions. The stockings are bright wool. The shoes wooden. Discarded shoes covered with cream colored oilcloth can be made to do.

PEASANT IN FAIRY OR FOLK PLAY. Do not use the lawn cap or the wooden shoes. Have the hair in two braids, and have low plain black shoes. Have the bodice as it is, and the guimpe, and have the skirt in plain material. This will do for any folk or fairy play, where the daughter of woodcutter, or a charcoal burner, or a farmer is to be personified. For Dutch Man, see Costume Plate 14.

Costume Plate 19

(For historical, romantic, fanciful plays or operettas, and for occasional use in American historical pageants.)

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PIRATE. With changes, CAPTAIN KIDD, A PIRATE OF PENZANCE, or a TREASURE ISLAND PIRATE. With other changes, an ELIZABETHAN PIRATE, or a LATE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY OR EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

PIRATE. Also with changes, an EIGHTEENTH CENTURY HIGHWAYMAN. (BEAU BROCADE.) With still other changes a GENTLEMAN OF THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, or a TRADESMAN OR SERVINGMAN of the EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Period. With various changes, Elizabethan to the early nineteenth century, but most strongly suited to the early eighteenth century.

Countries. England, France, America, Spain. The High Seas. The Spanish Main. (The Great North Road for the Highwayman.)

Color. According to use of costume. There was always a touch of flaring color about a pirate costume, while this costume, adapted for civilian use, would be in quiet colors.

Materials. According to the period of costume desired.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PIRATE. Same costume as in the illustration. White shirt. Dark green coat and knee breeches. Rolled back cuff of brilliant scarlet. Red stockings. Black shoes. Black hat. Tan leather belt. Front locks of hair caught with wisps of scarlet.

CAPTAIN KIDD. His costume would differ from that in this picture. A white shirt. Full scarlet breeches. A black Zouave jacket, without sleeves. A bright blue sash, with a dirk and a brace of pistols stuck in it. Long black boots coming to the knee. No belt or straps on suit as in this picture. Hair worn lank and wild, and bound about the brows with a red strip. Huge round gold earrings in ears. He may wear a black cloak, if desired, but no coat. He would wear this rather than the one in the costume plate, since he was executed in 1701, before these coats were in fashion. A round cutlass can be made out of small scythe.

PIRATES OF PENZANCE. Same as Captain Kidd.

TREASURE ISLAND PIRATES. Same as Captain Kidd, though differing in color. See any illustrated edition of Treasure Island. Pirates did not always wear beards. More often they wore fierce up-curling mustaches, or were smooth shaven.

ELIZABETHAN, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, and EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY. Same as Captain Kidd.

HIGHWAYMAN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. He should look less of a brigand, and more debonair than this accompanying plate. He should be smooth shaven, and his hair, in its natural color, should be worn in a queue. Knee boots of black leather. The coat in the picture, with the belt worn under it, instead of outside it. A brace of pistols stuck in this belt White linen stock, and small jabot. This same hat in silk or velvet. A rapier instead of sword. His suit may be black velvet or cloth, with scarlet satin

cuffs. A full black riding cloak may envelope him. There should be a touch of the dandy about him. See Baroness Orszy’s Beau Brocade.

GENTLEMAN OF THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. This coat in fine cloth or velvet, in gray, old rose, brown, blue or black, usually a quiet color. It must have fine buttons. Satin cuffs of a contrasting shade to the coat. The pockets embroidered in gold or silver braid. A white linen stock and jabot of lace. Shirt of white linen, the sleeve ending in a lace ruffle. He should have a silk or satin waistcoat, plain or brocaded. He should wear no belt or shoulder straps. Fine silk stockings. Low shoes, with diamond or silver buckles. A white curled wig. (See page 132.) A hat like the one in the costume plate, either of black velvet or fine black felt. He should be smooth shaven. The costume should be worked out in two colors, like gray and old rose, or black and old gold.

TRADESMAN OR SERVINGMAN OF THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The coat in the costume plate in plain cloth, and in dull colors. The cuffs in this case may be the same color as the coat, or contrasting. They must be of cloth, not silk or satin. No belt or shoulder strap. A very plain waistcoat may or may not be worn. There should be no lace jabot, only a plain white stock, with perhaps the hint of a linen ruffleNo lace ruffles at wrist, though a linen ruffle may be worn for a state occasion. Low black shoes without buckles. Woolen stockings. Hair in a queue, unpowdered. Hat of felt, like one in costume plate. Both the tradesman and servingman should be smooth shaven,

Costume Plate 20

(For historical plays, historical pageants, and in especial for American pageants and fourth of July celebrations)

COLONIAL COSTUME. ALSO ENGLISH AND FRENCH COSTUME. With changes AN AMERICAN MINUTE-MAN COSTUME. Also GEORGE WASHINGTON COSTUME. AMERICAN SOLDIER UNDER WASHINGTON.

Period. 1700-1800.

Countries. England, America, France.

Colors. The colors are solid colors, except where state coats of brocade are used. The colors vary with the use of the costume, and the country it belongs to.

Materials. The materials vary according to what the costume is used for.

Everyday Colonial costume and Minute-men Costumes are made of cloth. Costumes for minuets, and for balls and state occasions are made of silk and

satin and velvet. Particularly is this true of English costume comedy of the type of The Adventures of Lady Urusala, by Anthony Hope. Naturally the colors and materials of the French Revolution, for which this costume is appropriate, must vary very greatly, for some will be the costumes of the aristocrats and some of the Revolutionists.

COLONIAL COSTUME. For everyday wear, brown, blue, black, or green cloth. Also gray and plum cloth. Do not use red it instantly suggests the redcoats. For state occasions these same colors in satin, velvet and silk. Also in pink and white and blue and white and yellow and purple brocades. ENGLISH COSTUME. In plays like Beaucaire this costume should be made to look as magnificent as possible, the ruffles and jabot even more exaggerated. Clerks and inn boys and tradesmen may wear a white shirt, linen, not lace ruffles, the vest and trousers, but not the coat. Only gentlemen wore powdered hair.

FRENCH COSTUME. This costume may be worn by the aristocrats in fine materials and color, and by the Revolutionists in sober rough cloth. No Revolutionists would wear a powdered wig. But the aristocrats always wore them even to the last moment at the guillotine. They can be made by stitching white cotton batting to a skullcap of white cambric.

AMERICAN MINUTE-MAN. Take off the velvet coat, and the waistcoat, and have the white shirt for the upper part of the costume. Roll up the sleeves to the elbow. Have the knee breeches the same as in the picture. The three cornered hat is also the same, but the Minute-man’s wig is unpowdered. His natural hair is worn in a queue. A powder horn is slung about his shoulders by a leather strap. To vary this costume, the vest, unbuttoned, as if just slung on, breaks the monotony of a number of Minute-men coming hurriedly to the call to arms in a pageant. The Minute-men may also wear gaiters, tan colored. As the Minute-men change into American soldiers this costume may still do for a basis. See George Washington Costume.

GEORGE WASHINGTON COSTUME. This costume may be used in two ways for the Father of his Country. As it stands, in buff, gray, or plum, it may be the costume for Washington before the Revolution, or after the Revolution, Washington in civilian dress, the country gentleman at Mt. Vernon. Any of the shades suggested will do for this. For a military costume this same costume may be used as a basis. Use this coat in blue. Have a white vest and white knee breeches. Have white cuffs with gold braid and military buttons on the coat, and no ruffles at the wrist. The coat should be trimmed with white broadcloth and gold braid. (See any picture of George Washington in Military dress.) There should be gold fringed epaulets, and gold military buttons on the coat. The hat and wig of the costume plate are

excellent for the costume of Washington. There should be high boots, and a long blue military coat lined in red. See the following books for pictures: On the Trail of Washington, by Frederick Trevor Hill; The American Soldier, by Elbridge S. Brooks; American Hero Tales, by Theodore Roosevelt. See also page 132.

AMERICAN SOLDIER UNDER WASHINGTON. Infantry coats were blue, lined in white, with white buttons. New England troops had white facings. New York and New Jersey, buff facings. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, facings of red. Troops of the Carolinas in blue, with white buttonholes. All artillery coats were lined and faced in scarlet, their buttons and hat bands were yellow. Light dragoons or cavalry had blue coats, white facings, linings and buttons.

Costume Plate 21

(For historical plays, historical pageants, and in especial for American historical pageants)

BRITISH OFFICER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Period. 1768-1780.

Countries. England, America.

Colors. Scarlet coat. White waistcoat. White breeches. Black boots with spurs. Gold buttons and epaulets. Red hat with white and gold rosette. White ruffles at wrist.

Materials. Coat, broadcloth. Waistcoat and breeches of broadcloth. Braid made of gold. Ruffles of linen or lace, or fine net. Hat of felt.

Costume Plate 22

(For historical plays and pageants, in especial for American historical pageants)

BRITISH SOLDIER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. HESSIAN.

Period. 1768-1780.

Countries. England, America.

Colors. Scarlet coat, and breeches. White waistcoat. White cuffs. Gold epaulets. Black fur hat. White band crossing breast. White stockings.

Materials. Suit and vest of broadcloth, or cloth. Cuffs of white broadcloth. No ruffles. Gold braid on suit. Hat of fur. Band crossing breast of broadcloth. White woolen stockings, and black shoes. For scenes in action substitute black knee “Hessian” boots, on occasion.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Costume Plate 23

TRAPPER. DANIEL BOONE. YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Period. 1750 to 1800 in the East. 1750 to 1820 in far West.

Color. Khaki.

Materials. In reality the material was dressed deerskin, but it can be simulated by khaki or tan-colored canton flannel. Leather gaiters. Coonskin cap for Boone. Deerskin cap for George Washington.

Costume Plate 24

AMERICAN SAILOR. 1770 to the present.

The caps worn by the sailors of 1770 to 1800 were peculiar and exceedingly difficult for amateurs to copy, so perhaps the slight anachronism of this cap may be permitted. The trousers did not flare as much as these do now. They should be made wider at the top, and the same width around the edge for a sailor of Revolutionary days.

Costume Plate 25

COLONIAL LADY. FRENCH ARISTOCRAT. ENGLISH LADY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. MARIE ANTOINETTE. MARTHA WASHINGTON.

Period. 1778-1800. After the American Revolution.

Countries. America, England, France.

Color. Plain, solid-colored petticoat, in soft shade. Overdress of different color, flowered, or striped. Colors were now soft, pastel tinted, save where bright yellow or red petticoats were worn with a yellow or redsprigged dress. Fichu white.

Material. Muslin, lawn, silk, satin. See chapter on Costumes.

COLONIAL LADY. For morning wear white silk petticoat. Dress of pale blue muslin flowered in pink. White muslin fichu. Black slippers with silver buckles. White stockings. Evening wear, and for state occasions: Pink petticoat, made of satin. Brocaded overdress of cobalt blue brocade, flowered with silver roses, or rose pink roses. Lace fichu and wrist ruffles.

FRENCH ARISTOCRAT. The same type of costume as for COLONIAL LADY. The colors may vary as desired. For a matron, black satin flowered in gold and worn over a yellow petticoat would make a striking costume. Cretonne may simulate brocade.

ENGLISH LADY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The same as

for COLONIAL LADY.

MARIE ANTOINETTE. This costume in rich brocades in her days of good fortune, with a wide lace fichu, her hair dressed high, with many powdered curls, and with pearls and roses as a head dress. Slippers to match her dress. Diamond buckles on them. Scarf of hand painted gauze, or of jeweled gauze. For her last days, a muslin dress of white, sprigged in gray, opening over a white petticoat. Or a gray muslin sprigged in faint blue, opening over a gray petticoat. Muslin fichu and ruffles. The dress to be devoid of coquetry.

MARTHA WASHINGTON. This costume in lavender, white and purple, or cobalt blue and white. Lawns for morning wear, with a silk petticoat, silk and satin and brocade for dress occasions. For this period a shorter dress was worn. Cut off this under petticoat at the ankles. Cut off the overdress to the ankles, and then loop it up, fastening it with gathers at the hips. The bodice may be exactly the same, save that the sleeves come to the elbow. The materials and colors are the same. For further detail, and for suggestions for cloaks, muffs, etc., for winter wear, see chapter on Costumes.

CHILDREN’S DRESS. Little girls wore the short petticoat, coming to the ankles, and the pannier. See Costume Plate of Colonial Girl. For further detail of how to make these dresses out of cheesecloth and cambric, see descriptions for “Marie Antoinette Fête,” in Patriotic Plays and Pageants, by C. D. Mackay, entitled Benjamin Franklin Episode.

Costume Plate 26

COLONIAL GIRL. ENGLISH GIRL OR CHILD OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. LITTLE DAUGHTER OF FRENCH ARISTOCRAT, etc., etc.

Period. 1778-1800.

Countries. America, England, France.

Color. The softest colors, pink, blue, pale green, pale yellow.

Materials. Lawn, muslin, satin, silk, brocade.

COLONIAL GIRL. Pale green petticoat. Over dress of white sprigged with apple-blossom pink. The petticoat may be glazed cambric, the overdress cotton cretonne. This will be a good imitation of brocade and satin. Remember that in the morning lawn and silk or muslin were worn; fine lace brocade and satin was for the late afternoon and evening.

ENGLISH GIRL OR CHILD OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The same as for COLONIAL GIRL.

FRENCH ARISTOCRAT. The same as for COLONIAL GIRL, though with all these the shades of the costume may vary. See chapter on Costumes for cloaks, muffs, etc., etc.

PREVIOUS TO AND DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

From 1760-1778, this costume may be used as a basis. Cut off the petticoat to the ankles. Cut off the over dress to the ankles, and loop it up at each side, with panniers. Very often little girls wore no fichu just the Colonial dress. And often for very little girls the dress on page 207, without the hanging sleeve, and made in flowered muslin would be perfectly appropriate.

Costume Plate 27

(For play, pageant, or one of the gentry looking on at a folk festival) Period. 1800-1830. Worn in England, America, Ireland and France.

With certain changes may be worn by AMERICAN GENTLEMAN, ENGLISH GENTLEMAN, LAFAYETTE, BEAU BRUMMEL, NAPOLEON, JAMES MADISON.

Materials. Cloth for general wear, with silk waistcoat. Silk and velvet for court wear. Fine linen shirt, and black satin stock.

Colors. A quiet solid color; no brocade, or bright color was worn.

GENTLEMAN’S COSTUME. Blue brown or black cloth. Silk stockings. Leather slippers. Silk or satin waistcoat. Fine linen shirt. Black satin stock a black satin ribbon wound round a white lawn high-standing collar will do. A tall beaver hat.

LAFAYETTE. If Lafayette did not wear his uniform, his civilian dress would be like this, probably in French blue, with a buff silk waistcoat, white shirt, black stock or cravat as it was often called. Black shoes and stockings. For daytime the material would be cloth, for evening and affairs of state, satin or velvet.

BEAU BRUMMEL. The pictures in Clyde Fitch’s Beau Brummel will show how this costume may be made the basis of a costume for Beau Brummel. Brummel affected tights, rather than knee breeches, and usually wore brown. With a tall beaver hat and tights this costume will do admirably. The suit will otherwise be the same.

NAPOLEON. Look at a picture of Napoleon, and see how readily this coat can be given the Napoleon cut. With epaulettes, and a ribbon bright with orders, the coat blue, and the stockings and knee breeches white, Napoleon’s costume for formal affairs can be easily copied.

JAMES MADISON. For James Madison, this suit in quiet solid colors

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

is excellent as it stands. It needs no changes.

CHILDREN. For boy’s dress of this period, see Plate 43, and the books of Kate Greenaway.

For amateurs who cannot afford to hire this suit, or make it, an old black evening suit can be made to do. Make the trousers into knee breeches. Put colored buttons, collar and cuffs on the suit. (They should be made of velvet.) This will be found to do very well indeed.

Costume Plate 28

(For historical plays romantic plays, semi-historical plays, and in especial for American historical pageants)

MORNING OR AFTERNOON DRESS FOR LADY.

Countries. England, France, America, Austria, Italy.

Period. 1800-1830.

Color. White, any pastel shade, no crude colors. Sprigged muslin was very popular the sprigs must be tiny and dainty. Also plain light colors might have a border of flowers around the edge of the dress. A pale blue muslin might have a border of roses the border wide.

Materials. All stiff formal materials had gone out. Brocades and velvets had vanished. The materials used were soft silks, like china silk, silk muslin, muslin, organdie, mull, soft woolen material. The scarfs were of muslin or chiffon, generally in a plain color. Hats were of straw, trimmed with silk muslin. Poke bonnets were worn, particularly in winter. The costumes belonged to the time of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, Beau Brummel, and it was in such attire that American ladies welcomed Lafayette on his visit to America. See page 133.

As has been said, this is a morning or afternoon dress, but it is not an evening dress. For an evening dress of that period, take off the hat. Wind the hair high on the head, and have little curls on the side. Have the dress as it is now, with short sleeves added. Have the same low slippers and necklace, and the dress is complete. See Chapter on Costuming. For winter wear, a short-waisted longcloth coat, with a big muff and a poke bonnet. Huge buttons on the coat. Sleeves and neck are edged with fur. See pictures in Kate Greenaway’s books.

CHILDREN. For dress for little girl of this period, see Costume Plate 42.

Costume Plate 29

(For American historical plays, pageants, and tableaux, in especial for American historical pageants, and plays like Secret Service)

CIVIL WAR SOLDIER.

Period. The Civil War.

Countries. America.

Color. Blue for the Northern soldiers. Gray for Southern soldiers.

Materials. Cloth. Leather bag and straps of leather for knapsack.

For fuller description of these costumes, see page 134.

The costume as it is given here can very easily be copied, or it can be “faked” by clever amateurs. To a blue or gray Summer suit add brass buttons, and baste stripes down the trousers: also put the right insignia on the arm. These can be copied from list of books given on page 134. A cap shaped like a messenger’s should be used with these suits. Blue messenger’s caps are easily obtainable. A blue cap can be covered with gray cloth for the South. From any true picture of the Civil War one can copy the effect of reality, thus: The Confederates were very ragged, and for battle scenes shirt sleeves and gray trousers would do very well. Also in such scenes the Union soldiers might wear blue trousers and blue flannel shirts.

As a rule it is better to hire these costumes for pageants, if the committee can do so, especially as most scenes show the soldiers marching away or returning, rather than at actual war, and in these cases the costume worn would be in better shape.

Costume Plate 30

(For plays and pageants)

MAN IN CIVIL WAR EPISODE OF AMERICAN HISTORICAL PAGEANT, MAN IN LITTLE WOMEN, in any LINCOLN PLAY, in such plays as TRELAWNY or THE WELLS, MILESTONES, CAPTAIN JINKS, SECRET SERVICE.

Countries. America, England, France, Ireland.

Period. 1860-1870.

Color. Black, navy blue, or gray. The waistcoat plain in sober scenes or in comedy scenes very gaily striped or flowered.

Material. Serge or broadcloth. An old overcoat can often be re-cut and made to do service for this costume. The face of the wearer may be smooth shaven or have a mustache or immense and (comic) side whiskers all according to the type of play desired.

Children’s Costumes. Little boys wore the same kind of jacket as the little girl in Plate 31. They also had the same kind of undersleeve as their soft white linen shirts showed beneath the sleeves of their jackets. Their trousers should be long and loose.

Costume Plate 31

(For old-fashioned plays, plays of the Civil War, and in especial for American pageants)

LADY WITH LITTLE GIRL. CIVIL WAR MATRON. BARBARA FRIETCHIE. For characters in amateur production of TRELAWNY OF THE WELLS; also for most of DICKENS PLAYS. For any LINCOLN PLAY. For LITTLE WOMEN.

Period. 1858-1870. (It should be noted here that if amateurs desire to produce plays from the period of 1830-1858 for which no costume plates are given, they can use this dress with a round full skirt, without the hoops, and with a plain waist with a linen turn over collar.)

Colors. Any solid color. No pastel colors. Small plaids and checks may be used if desired.

Materials. Silk, poplin, satin, muslin. This is an afternoon dress, or a dress for the morning. For an evening dress the same type of skirt, with clusters of flowers on it. A tight fitting bodice, low necked, and with the shortest possible sleeve. In evening dress the materials would be silk, silk muslin, satin, or tarlatan. It is the kind of costume worn in certain Dickens’s plays where for comic effect, the colors may be very bright, like bright green or cerise. In Trelawny of the Wells, bright and sober colors may both be worn. For balls and evening parties, gay light colors. For amateur productions of Captain Jinks have silk and tarletan.

CIVIL WAR MATRON should wear subdued colors, nothing gay. Or sprigged muslin. The same is true for any LINCOLN play, and for amateur productions of Little Women.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE should wear white, and light colors. These costumes may also be worn for amateur productions of Secret Service.

Costume Plate 32

(For plays, and naval festivals)

MODERN ADMIRAL.

Country. United States.

Colors. Blue with gold braid.

Material. Broadcloth.

CHAPTER 7

Fanciful Costumes for Adults

Costume Plate 33

(For fantastic plays, pantomimes, mimic carnivals)

PIERRETTE COSTUME. With certain changes, QUEEN OF HEARTS.

Period. From mediaeval times to the eighteenth century and onward in Italy. From the eighteenth century onward for England and France.

Countries. Italy, England, France, Fantastic No-Man’s-Land.

Color. White, with black hearts on the costume. A white ruff. A white cap with black hearts on it. Or large black polka dots may be used instead of hearts. Or the hearts may be red.

Materials. Either white silk muslin, with an under petticoat of silk, and a stiff white muslin ruff, or white tarlatan or chiffon, with the red or black hearts very delicately fastened to it. Pierrette is an airy creature. She should be fairylike in appearance. The shoes and stockings may be black as in the plate, or they may be white to match the dress.

PIERRETTE. Pierrette’s costume has been described under Color and Material.

QUEEN OF HEARTS. This same dress made long enough to touch the floor, with the border of hearts round the edge, and then coming up the middle of the skirt as described in this picture. Instead of the ruff let the dress be cut a little low, and edged with scarlet The hearts must be red for a Queen of Hearts. She may have a long white train fastened to her shoulders, lined in red, and with either a border of hearts around it, or a huge red heart in the center of it. Instead of this cap she should wear a crown, made like a coronet, and it should have a row of gold hearts on it. Her scepter should be gold with a red heart tipping it. For the KING OF HEARTS take the costume on Plate 7, make it of white and red, with heart decorations. For the KNAVE OF HEARTS the costume plate, in white, with red hearts on it, These will do for Mother Goose plays and festivals, and for Alice in Wonderland, etc.

For PIERROT see Costume Plate 46.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Costume Plate 34

(For plays, festivals, and operettas)

JAPANESE MAN.

Period. 1700 to the present.

Colors. Under-dress of rose, with black design. Sash of rose. Over-dress or kimono of rose, with gray border.

Materials. Crepe, cretonne, or silk. Wooden sandals are worn, fastened over the bare feet with leather thongs. Bare feet may be simulated by tan stockings. The sandals can be made of two small wooden boxes, of the same size, or pieces of wood with ordinary wooden spools to raise them from the ground.

Costume Plate 35

(For Japanese play or operetta, or for festival of nations or Japanese pantomime)

JAPANESE GIRL OR WOMAN.

Period. Any imaginary period up to the present.

Color. Softly flowered greens or blues or reds or purples.

Material. Japanese crepe, or silk. Can be imitated by wearing Japanese furniture cretonne, or adapting any pretty kimona that is in the wardrobe of the amateur.

For this particular costume the parasol might be rose color, the dress gray blue with a deep blue border, and a rose-colored obi, or sash, tied in a huge butterfly bow behind.

Costume Plate 36

(For plays and festivals of the Far East. For plays of the Arabian Nights or Arabian night’s pantomimes or for an Omar Masque)

TURKISH LADY. ARABIAN LADY. PERSIAN LADY.

Color. According to the country represented, and the rank of the lady. As a rule, brilliant colors.

Material. Silk and velvet can be imitated by silkoline and canton flannel, though only settlements or schools who cannot afford silk and velvet should use this device.

TURKISH LADY. This dress in pale blue, white and pink, or in pale gold, white and black.

ARABIAN LADY. Cover the dress with a long white veil that falls

almost to the feet and shows only the eyes.

PERSIAN LADY. This costume with trousers of blue and gold brocade, a blue sash, gold jacket, and long veil showing only the eyes. This veil may be drawn about the face, and lifted or glanced through with sly coquetry.

A TURKISH MAN would wear exactly these same trousers, and a sash, without the long ends. A shirt with loose sleeves, and a Turkish jacket as in this picture. He would wear a red fez, with a black tassel. This costume can thus easily become the basis for a man’s costume.

Costume Plate 37

(For play, pageant, and in especial for festival of nations)

SPANISH DANCER’S COSTUME. CARMEN, ETC.

Period. 1492 to the present.

Countries. Spain, South America, Portugal.

Colors. The costume may be worked out in orange and black, red and black, or purple and orange, or yellow and black. The colors must be in strong contrast.

Materials. Silk skirt. Silk sash. Velvet bolero. Lawn waist. Silk cap. Instead of a silk cap a black lace mantilla may be worn, and the hair done high on the head with a huge white shell comb, or a tortoiseshell comb. The earrings should be gold or coral of the reddest.

CHAPTER 8

Costumes for Children

Costume Plate 38

(For play or festival)

SANTA CLAUS. MEDIAEVAL FATHER CHRISTMAS. ST. NICHOLAS, ETC.

Period. From mediaeval times to the present.

Color. Red suit and cap trimmed with white fur, and gold bells. Has black boots.

Materials. Red canton flannel and white batting for fur, or white flannelette may be used as a border. Boots of black oilcloth. For a mediaeval FATHER CHRISTMAS, or ST. NICHOLAS have a gold crown instead of a cap, but have the same ruddy smiling face and long white beard. Have red tights and soft red shoes, edged with white fur. These same tight sleeves should be worn, and over them a flowing angel sleeve of red edged with white fur. The hands bare, no pack of toys or bells, but instead a tall white staff wound with holly.

Costume Plate 39

(For play, pageant or festival)

ELF. PUCK. ROBIN GOODFELLOW. BROWNIE. ONE OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE. BUMBLE BEE. DWARF.

Period. Any period since fairies first were known.

Countries. All the happy countries that have fairies, and all the countries in the Fairy Tales.

Color. According to the colors wanted.

Materials. Velvet, canton flannel, cambric.

Brown is the color for an elf and for Puck. Scarlet for Robin Goodfellow, or brown. Brown also for a Brownie. Green for one of the Little People. For the Little Men in Snow White, a black or gray suit, and a long beard of white. Instead of this cap, a peaked cap of black, showing the hair. For a Bumble Bee this suit with a round cap, made of yellow and black striped material, or canton flannel stitched together. The stripes should be four

inches wide. Gray gauze wings made on wire frames should be stitched to the shoulders. A woolen union suit dyed the desired color at a dyeing establishment, or at home with Diamond Dyes will solve the problem of the costume. If it is wanted for a summer play, and a woolen suit will be found too heavy, then use a cotton suit one size too large to allow for shrinkage, and dye it with Diamond Dyes especially manufactured for cotton goods. For a very little elf and crowds of very tiny elves are sometimes used in Fairy plays use women’s long green silk stockings, taking them in until they fit the elf. Their length will make them possible for a small pair of tights. Then a green jacket and head covering can be easily made to go with them. The feet of the stockings may be cut off, and green shoes substituted. The toes may turn up or not, as desired. These turned up shoes should be made of canvas covered with green.

See costumes for Children’s Plays, page 55.

Costume Plate 40

(For play, pageant, festival, pantomime)

FAIRY. BUTTERFLY. MOTH. DRYAD. HAMADRYAD. SPIRIT OF FOREST MEADOW, or STREAM. GREEK GIRL. ROMAN GIRL. With changes, SAXON PEASANT GIRL.

FAIRY. Dress of chiffon, silkoline or cheesecloth. It should be white and not too full. Avoid bunchiness. Wings of white muslin, made on a wire frame, and painted with orange and turquoise blue eyes. Or with gold and silver. Or the Fairy may have no wings at all. Just the white dress and the wand. Wings of compo board, painted white, and then decorated with “eyes” are also possible. Compo board can be bought wherever architects’ supplies are carried. White stockings. Gold wand.

BUTTERFLY. A dark brown silkoline or cambric (unglazed) dress. Wings of brown with blue “eyes” or of sheer yellow whatever color is most desired. See any good butterfly book, and copy the wings from that. Brown stockings and shoes.

MOTH. The same as Butterfly, save that the wings are dark and. match the body. The eyes on the wings should be of dusky gorgeousness. See any good book on Moths.

DRYAD. A dress of tree trunk brown silkoline made over an underslip of forest green silkoline that will glint through when she dances. Leaf brown stockings. The dress should be all in one piece and made very simply. No wings. The hair flying.

HAMADRYAD. Brown as for Dryad, with green underslip which

faintly shows through as she dances. A green cord about the breast, and stitched to the dress where this cord crosses artificial twigs and green leaves. Fastened on each shoulder artificial twigs and green leaves. A crown of brown buds and green leaves.

SPIRIT OF FOREST, MEADOW, or STREAM. A Forest Spirit would wear forest green dress, with brown cord about the breast. Brown stockings. No wings. Should carry a branch in her hand. A Meadow Spirit should wear a pale green dress made over a pale yellow underslip. She should be crowned with daisies and buttercups, and a band of daisies should be worn about her breast. She should carry a staff twined with daisies. A SPIRIT or RIVER or STREAM should wear river blue, and have a silver cord crossing her breast. She should carry a white chiffon scarf which waves and flutters when she dances. No wings for any of these spirits.

GREEK GIRL. This costume without the wings and with the hair bound about the head, or gathered in a knot at the back would be correct absolutely for a Greek girl. It might be in white linen or wool, or bright blue, pompeian red, or pale yellow.

ROMAN GIRL. The wings omitted, the hair wound about the head, and a linen or woolen dress of blue, or blood red, white or yellow. See Roman Costumes, page 25.

SAXON PEASANT GIRL. With the hair flying, with no wings, with the bands crossing the breast removed, the costume is good for a Saxon peasant girl. It should be of white wool or coarse unbleached muslin or linen. It may be brown, dark blue, or white. She should wear sandals laced with white or leather straps. See Chapter on Costumes, under Costumes of Great Britain.

For all save the Greek or Roman girls this garment is made in one piece. For symbolic characters the hem should never be stitched, nor turned up. It should be cut not too evenly. It hangs better unstitched. Experience has proved that this gives it lighter and better lines for dancing. The hem makes it stiff, whether for Fairy or Dryad.

See Costumes for Children’s Plays, page 55.

OTHER FAIRIES. As there is great latitude in costuming fairies and elves, designs A, B and C (Costume Plate 40 Continued) are suggested as variants. Compare with Elf, plate 39, and Fairy, plate 40.

Costume Plate 41

(For plays, and in especial morality plays, fairy plays. Also for festivals and for symbolic figures in pageants)

FOLLY. With changes, FLOWER FAIRY. SEASON FAIRY. SPRING. SUMMER. AUTUMN. WINTER.

Period. Any imaginary period.

Country. Any imaginary country.

Color. The color will depend absolutely on the kind of costume desired. Materials. The materials will depend absolutely on the kind of costume desired.

FOLLY. For the figure of Folly in a Morality Play, or for symbolic figures in pageants and festivals such as Folly driving out Industry or welcoming Sloth or Ignorance, the costume may be in black or scarlet silk, which can be imitated by glazed cambric. Or black and red cheesecloth can be worn. Or the costume may be all in red. The bells and trimming on the bodice are gold.

FLOWER FAIRY. This same dress, with no bells on the scallops. If the flower is to be a ROSE have the skirt pale green. The dark scallop should be dark green, and the light scallops above it rose color. The shoes and stockings should be green. For a POPPY this same dress in scarlet and green. For a daffodil, green and yellow. For MIGNONETTE have the dress all one shade of green, and have little stars of red hung at the end of each petal. For a LILY the dress should be white and green, with a gold girdle. For a TULIP the dress would be entirely orange. For LARKSPUR, bright blue petals over a green skirt. The hats of the costumes should be broad, and made of the petals of the flower rose for roses, red for poppies. In the case of Mignonette and Larkspur, have little caps of green or blue.

SPRING FAIRY. Costume in two shades of green, very pale tender green for the skirt, dark green for the first scallop, and pale green for the rest of the dress. At the edge of each scallop a white daisy might be fastened if desired.

SUMMER FAIRY OR SPRITE. This costume in rose-red and green. The petticoat rose-red, the first scallop green. The rest of the dress rosered. A hat made of rose leaves, or a wreath of roses.

AUTUMN FAIRY. Skirt of yellow. Dark scallop of brown, or russet. The upper scallops of yellow. The belt of purple and gold. May wear wreath of purple grapes.

WINTER FAIRY. This same costume made entirely in white canton flannel. A large crystal bead at the end of each scallop, to glitter like frostwork. White shoes and stockings, the slippers edged with white fur. Silver cap. High neck for bodice.

CHRISTMAS FAIRY. This costume as described for Winter, made of the same materials, but with a silver girdle, and a white staff wound with

COSTUMES FOR CHILDREN

holly and tipped with a silver star.

Costume Plate 42 (Fairy plays, historical plays, folk plays, festivals, pageants)

CHILDREN OF NOBLES. PEASANT CHILDREN.

Period. 1000 to 1490.

Countries. England, Ireland, France, Flanders, Holland, Germany, Italy. Also all Fairy Tale countries, whether Andersen’s or Grimm’s tales. But not the countries of any Russian or Eastern Fairy Tale.

Materials. Silk and satin for the nobility. Serge and cambric for peasants.

CHILDREN OF NOBLES. These costumes, exactly as they stand, can be worn by children of noble birth up to the eighteenth century, and from the eleventh. There must, of course, be slight changes. From the eleventh to the end of the fifteenth centuries they stand exactly as they are. In the sixteenth century the hanging sleeve is dropped, and the bodice is longer and pointed. This is true of the seventeenth century, save that the bodice is longer and not pointed. The boy’s costume may be worn till the end of the fifteenth century; then doublet and hose came in. (See Plate 9.) The little girl, if a Princess, might wear rose-red velvet or satin, the sleeves lined in white satin. They might have a border of gold, and a white satin cap edged with gold might be upon her head. The boy, if he were a Prince, would not wear cloth about his shoulders. He would simply wear a tunic. This might be purple cloth trimmed with bands of ermine. These will do for both historical and fairy plays. If the little girl needs something simpler than a princess’s dress she might wear pale blue silkoline, the sleeves lined in pale rose, and with silver bobbins at the edge. A pale blue cap with a little white lace border. The boy’s simpler costume might be white cloth with a gold belt. His cap would always be a round cap with a peak.

CHILDREN OF PEASANTS. If the little girl is a peasant in an historical play she may not wear the hanging sleeve. If it is only in a fairy play, it will not matter so much. But the amateur producer must remember that a hanging sleeve was in mediaeval times permitted only to the gentry and nobility. See Chapter on Costuming.

A little peasant girl, whether in a fairy or historical play, might wear a blue serge dress, and a cap with white embroidery edging. Or a brown dress. If she is in a fairy tale she might wear dark crimson. The boy may wear green or brown serge. If serge is not to be used, then use cambric. His tunic may come to the knee if desired. If he was an historical peasant his legs would be bare if the play was historically correct. His shoes are laced with leather

COSTUMES FOR CHILDREN

straps about his ankles. Oilcloth may be used for this, and in dark brown gives a passable imitation of leather.

Costume Plate 43

(For plays, pageants in especial American pageants and for festivals. For MOTHER GOOSE and KATE GREEN-AWAY FESTIVALS)

Period. 1810-1830.

Countries. England, France, America.

Color. The softest colors should be used for these costumes. Pale blue, pink, white, pale green. See Kate Greenaway’s Books.

Materials. Silk, silk muslin, and plain muslin for the little girl. Cloth or satin for the little boy.

These costumes are appropriate for Kate Greenaway Festivals, and for Mother Goose. LITTLE BOY BLUE. TOM, TOM THE PIPER’S SON. MISTRESS MARY. Miss MUFFET may be costumed like this. For plays of the period of Miss Austin’s novels these are correct. For AMERICAN PAGEANTS where children welcome LAFAYETTE these are correct, and appropriate. Little girls dressed like this used to present LAFAYETTE with large frilled bouquets of flowers, as he passed from one city to another on his American visits.

Costume Plate 44

(For fairy and fantastic plays, and for Mother Goose pageants, etc., etc.)

FAIRY GODMOTHER. WITCH. MOTHER GOOSE. MOTHER HUBBARD. WICKED FAIRY. OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE.

Period. Any Fairy Period.

Countries. For fairy tale character in England, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, America.

Color. The colors vary according to the costume desired.

Materials. Cambric is a good material for the costume, or serge, or woolen batiste. Hat of canvas covered with black cambric.

FAIRY GODMOTHER. Scarlet petticoat, and panniers. Very dark green velvet bodice laced over a white guimpe. Very dark green cloak lined in scarlet. Scarlet steeple hat, with a black rim. Carries a wand.

WITCH. Black skirt and panniers. Black velvet bodice. White guimpe. Black cloak. Black steeple hat. Carries a broom.

MOTHER GOOSE. Red quilted petticoat. Red panniers. Black velvet

bodice. White guimpe. Black cloak lined in scarlet. Black steeple hat. Flying hair omitted. Wears a white wig made of a white muslin skullcap to which white cotton batting is stitched so that it gives the effect of short white curls. Wears large round spectacles with bone rims. Carries knitting in her hand, and is attended by her famous goose. This may be a large cotton batting goose mounted on a strip of green board that has small castors, like any child’s toy. To this toy a string should be fastened, so that the goose will follow Mother Goose wherever she goes.

MOTHER HUBBARD. A cretonne petticoat of white, flowered with large red roses. Panniers of plain red. A black bodice and white guimpe. A forest green cloak. Her hair should be tucked neatly beneath a large white mobcap with a scarlet bow at one side. She would wear long black silk mits, and carry a basket on her arm.

WICKED FAIRY. The same costume as WITCH.

OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE. Dark green quilted petticoat. Buff colored panniers. Buff bodice and white guimpe. A black cloak, and her hair tucked beneath a sort of mobcap tied under her chin. This costume at once suggests itself as appropriate for CINDERELLA’S GODMOTHER. The WICKED FAIRY in The Sleeping Beauty. The WITCH in Hansel and Gretel, etc.

Costume Plate 45

(For use in children’s plays, fantastic or fairy, and in festivals and pantomimes)

LITTLE PIERRETTE. QUEEN OF HEARTS, etc., etc. For description of how to adapt this to varying needs see adult Pierrette, Costume Plate 33.

Costume Plate 46

(For plays, festivals, pantomimes)

PIERROT. CLOWN. FANCIFUL FIGURE. Period. From the Eighteenth Century in England, France and America. From the sixteenth in Italy, where he has a figure in the Commedia dell’ Arte. Colors. According to costume.

Materials. Cambric is the best.

PIERROT. For Pierrot there should be no patches on the face, his cap should be set straight, with pompons at side, his ruff should be white, not dotted. His dress should be white with black dots sewn to it. Never axe the dots any other color than black on white. This is an excellent costume for

such charming trifles as Edmond Rostand’s Pierrot qui Rit.

CLOWN. The down costume is in every way coarser than the Pierrot costume. It does not suggest such lightness and grace. It should be exactly as in the picture, white muslin with red dots sewn on it. Black patches on a whitened face. His mouth deep carmine.

FANCIFUL FIGURE. This may be a fanciful figure for Seasonal or Symbolic Festivals. In bright green with lighter green dots he might be Master Peapod, or in white, Master Milkweed, and so forth.

Costume Plate 47

(For plays in especial fantastic plays, for pantomimes, pageants, and festivals)

DOMINO. DISGUISE. FOLLOWER OF PIERROT AND PIERRETTE. BUD. PUSSYWILLOW. SUGAR IN “THE BLUEBIRD.” FIGURE IN ARABIAN NIGHTS CROWD. CHRYSALIS.

Period. Any period from mediaeval days down to the present. Any fairy period.

Countries. America, France, England.

Color. According to the needs of the wearer.

Material. According to what is most appropriate.

DOMINO. For a Domino black is the prevailing color, though at fancy costume balls like the ball in L’Aiglon, or at Mardi Gras, any bright plain color or any soft color may be used, pink, blue, green, gray. Silk or silkoline or cambric should be the material.

FOLLOWER OF PIERROT AND PIERRETTE. Where there is a pantomime that needs a crowd of supers in a Pierrot pantomime, the supers may wear dominos in gray, brown, black.

BUD. For a spring festival this costume in brown may symbolize a bud. Under it a leaf green costume may be worn. At the touch of Spring’s wand the brown costume is tossed off, and the green dress worn underneath is seen. Cambric may be used for this effect.

PUSSYWILLOW. This costume in gray cotton batting, or any gray furry stuff will make a pussywillow costume for a Spring festival

SUGAR. For Sugar in The Blue Bird and for kindred plays this is a useful costume. For Sugar it should be of blue-white muslin.

FIGURE IN ARABIAN NIGHTS CROWD. For a pantomime of the Arabian Nights a number of supers can quickly and easily be costumed by having this costume in unobtrusive colors, and by wearing a long beard with it. It helps a scene shift, as it can easily be used to disguise principals who

COSTUMES FOR CHILDREN

can be supers for a while, and in an instant principals again.

CHRYSALIS. This costume in white cotton batting may be used in Spring festivals. At the touch of Spring it opens and reveals the Butterfly in gorgeous yellow, or yellow and brown.

CHAPTER 9 Scene Plates

Scene Plate 1

Scene. A GREEK OR ROMAN OR FAIRY PALACE. Period. Ancient Greek, Roman, and all Fairy periods.

Countries. Greece, Rome, and Fairy Tale countries.

Colors. White pillars. Back of these are curtains of whatever color best suits the kind of play, its costumes and period. The best background would be white, turquoise or deep blue, very dark rose, or dark purple. For a midnight scene the curtains might be purplish, and when parted give a glimpse of the midnight sky without. Dark blue curtains, flecked with constellations of silver white stars will give a fantastic effect of a midnight sky.

Materials. The pillars may be made of wood and canvas, or of compo board painted white. The curtains may be silk or velvet, or in imitation of these crepe, or canton flannel. The material backing the pillars must not be transparent.

Construction. The pillars may be a back drop for a very shallow stage, and then the sides may be masked with scant curtains, or if a deep square stage is wished, then duplicate these pillars and curtains for the sides of the stage, a thing very easy to do. See Scenery, page 61.

Lighting. Can be used with footlights for a daylight scene. With stage moonlight and blue footlights can be a night scene. It can even give the effect of a tent in a Greek or Roman camp at night, if a shield is hung where the curtains part at the top. In this case have white curtains, and let the lights of moving torches, and campfires appear from the back, glowing through the curtains.

Plays. Can be used for a Fairy Palace, for the Palace in Snow White, for the setting of a Morality Play, or Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. For Orsino’s Palace in Twelfth Night with purple curtains, for Olivia’s house in the same play with deep rose curtains. Can be used for the Masque of Pandora, for Julius Caesar, and for amateur presentations of The Trey and Women. Can be used for the palace in The Sleeping Beauty, and in Cinderella. Can be

used as setting for The House of the Heart.

Scene Plate 2

Scene. EARLY SAXON INTERIOR.

Period. The Saxon period, and the centuries just following.

Countries. France, England, Ireland.

Colors. The walls should be cement gray that is, stone gray, or cream color. But preferably stone gray. The doors are oak brown, with wrought iron latches, and hinges. The bench is of oak. The window has iron bars, and the glass is made of paraffin paper, light enough in quality for light to stream through from behind the scene. The brazier is supposed to be of iron. In reality it is made of a camp washstand painted black.

Materials. Painted canvas or unbleached cotton. Or the whole scene can be composed of cartridge wallpaper in stone gray, if the painted scenery cannot be had. See Chapter on Scenery.

Construction. See Scenery, page 138.

Lighting. This scene can be lit from the back. Quench the footlights, and for a daylight scene have golden sunlight streaming through the window. For a mysterious night scene it can be lit by moonlight streaming through the window. The brazier may be lit by keeping a red spotlight on it, or by having a quantity of red fire powder sunk in a saucer in the middle of the basin. The room, being gray, needs this spark of color. Unless it is summer, do not omit it. A stone hearth may be used if desired, such as is given in Scene Plate 5.

Plays. Malvolio’s prison in Twelfth Night. The Friar’s cell in Romeo and Juliet. Joan of Arc’s prison. A room in the time of Robin Hood. A room in Fairy Tale plays or Folk plays. Could be used for the room where the Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger and fell asleep. Is good for plays of very early Celtic History, such as the plays of William Butler Yeats, that deal with Celtic history, and Lady Gregory’s Celtic History Plays.

Scene Plate 3

A HEATH OR OPEN SPACE.

Materials. Canvas or unbleached muslin.

Colors. The sky, blue (light). The grass, dim misty green. The trees, dim brown and green.

This may be used as a backdrop with a shallow stage, or with the trees on page 248 cut as wings it may be used as a backdrop with a deep stage. If

SCENE PLATES

a wider scene is wished than these Forest of Arden trees portray as side pieces, then have stark, leafless or nearly leafless trees as wings, with dark, twisted sinister branches. This scene may also be used as a Cydoraina. See page 138.

Scene Plate 4

A DENSE WOOD OR FOREST. A MORE OPEN WOOD.

Period. Any period from the earliest times to the present.

Countries. America, England, France, Germany, certain parts of Italy, fantastic mythologic countries, and fairyland.

Colors. For a dense wood or forest the scene is in three colors. Dark green foliage, dark brown tree trunks, and a background of paler green to suggest the depths of the forest. The trees are made alike so that amateurs can stencil them. It suggests a wood, rather than gives a wood in actuality. For a more open wood, giving a glimpse of sky, use the trees, cut out, and silhouetted against Plate 3, which can be used as a background. For Fairyland use the dense wood. The scene may be used as a backdrop for a shallow stage, or if a deep stage is used, this can be the backdrop. Wings cut exactly like the trees can be set up, at right and left, the edges scalloped a little to give the effect of foliage, and a few holes cut as in the picture. This is called a cut scene.

Materials. Canvas, or unbleached muslin. Or it may be made of compo board. See Chapter on Scenery. Can also be used as a Cyclorama. See page 138.

Construction. See page 138.

Lighting. Can be used as a daylight scene, or flooded with moonlight can be a moonlit scene, or can be dark and mysterious.

Plays. Can be used for any fair play, for any folk play requiring a wood. For Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, for As You Like It, for A Rose of Plymouth Town. For the last scene of Nathan Hale. For Jeanne D’Arc’s wood of Domremy. For the Forest of Sherwood. For the scene of The Dream Lady. For Curtain Scenery. Make the backdrop of green denim. Cut out the trees from darker green (unglazed) cambric, and have brown cambric tree trunks. Stitch to denim, and hang round the sides of stage; leaving openings between the trees for entrances. It will look like a tapestry forest.

SCENE PLATES

Scene Plate 5

KITCHEN SCENE.

Period. Anglo-Saxon period to the present.

Countries. American, English, French, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian. The Germans and Dutch used stoves, but it tould be used for a Dutch or German peasant scene in a poor hut where they could not afford stoves. It may be used for Hans Andersen’s and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Colors. The walls are brown, as if stained with smoke. The door and windows are a richer brown, that is, a darker brown. The stone of the hearth shelf is grayish brown, or entirely gray. The stool is made of pine, and is unpainted.

Materials. Scene painted on canvas or unbleached cotton. Door may be of compo board tacked to wood, and painted. Wallpaper in dark brown, absolutely plain, or wallpaper made like wood, can be used for both walls and door at a pinch. But paint is best. See page 138.

Construction. See page 138. Plain brown walls will do for the side of the stage. There may be a door like the outer door leading into smother room of the house. It should be constructed of the same material. Window may be made of paper, or paraffin paper. It should be on a hinge so it can open. If it is a Saxon window, it should be made like window in Scene Plate 2, Plays. This is a most useful scene. It can be used for all Fairy plays and almost all Folk plays. It may be Cinderella’s Kitchen, or the Kitchen in the Silver Thread. At this hearth King Alfred may burn the cakes, or Jeanne D’Arc see her visions. It may be a Puritan or Pilgrim interior. Priscilla Mullins may sit here spinning. It may be the kitchen in Olivia’s house in Twelfth Night. It may be used for an amateur production of The Blue Bird by Maeterlinck, and be the first scene. It may be an Elizabethan inn. With the window on page 266 it may be a Colonial room for American history plays, or the school house for Nathan Hale. The number of ways it can be used is simply endless. It may be Snow White’s Home with the Little Men. With a stove it may be the kitchen of the Ruggles family in The Bird’s Christmas Carol.

Scene Plate 6

Scene. THE SEASHORE.

Countries. Any country that has a rocky sea coast. Period. Any period.

Colors. Sky, light blue. Sea strip, darker blue. Rocks in two shades of

brown, with dark purplish shadows.

Materials. Flax canvas or unbleached cotton, painted. Silk for the sea if possible. See page 139.

Construction. The sea and sky painted on the backdrop, if the separate sea strip is not used. The rocks of canvas, painted. Underneath this canvas, which is bulked to look like rock, there should be a firm wooden frame. A lot of dry goods boxes nailed together will not be a bad scheme. The rock in left foreground is made to come down in a point, and leaves a place for amateurs to enter. This scene can be used for a shallow backdrop. The sides can be masked with rock brown curtains. If one wishes to have a deeper stage, then run canvas rocks up the right and left sides, as far as the eye can reach, as if this were a cove. These rock wings will jut out and give two more entrances.

Plays. The scene of Alice in Wonderland that is laid by the sea. Can be used for the sea scene in Twelfth Night. Can be used as a backdrop for other scenes that are laid on the sea shore. The kitchen scene used in Synge’s Riders to the Sea can look out on this scene. It can be the blue sea of the Isles of Greece, used as a background for the Greek temple.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Scene Plate 7

Scene. CASTLE WALL. HIGHWAY. DONJON KEEP, MONASTERY AND CHURCH OF THE COLLEGIATE GOTHIC PERIOD. OUTSIDE or DUNGEON.

Period. Can be used from Anglo-Norman period on. It has some of the characteristics of the English Elizabethan and the Tudor, and so it can be used at a pinch for these also.

Countries. England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark.

Colors. Stone gray or stone brown. The castle is painted against a pale blue sky used as a backdrop, or a Cyclorama can be used. The doorway’s opening is the same color as the castle in a shade two degrees lighter. The doorway is really open, and the opening is filled by a screen, a lighter stone shade.

Construction. The scene is meant for a shallow stage and is painted on a backdrop. If it is necessary to use it with a deep stage, then have wings of green that look like high green banks on either side. (See Chapter on Scenery.) Or have wings of rock.

Materials. See page 66.

Plays. Can be used as the last act of Canterbury Pilgrims, the Church Scene in Much Ado About Nothing, can form a last Church Scene for Twelfth Night wedding procession if so desired. Can be used for the battlement scene of Hamlet, and for a scene in Macbeth, though it is not absolutely suited to them. Yet it is better than many amateur attempts that are garish. It also makes an excellent background for mediaeval festivals. Jugglers, ballad singers, folk dancers, chanting monks, etc., etc., will wind in and out of the castle door.

Scene Plate 8

This repetition of the Castle Scene shows how this scene, or any other scene, may be marked off and drawn to scale, as per direction in page 141, Each square here represents two feet; the scene would thus be 25 feet wide by 17 feet high.

Scene Plate 9

STREET SCENE.

Period. From the time of Queen Elizabeth down. Countries. English, Flemish, French, German.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Colors. The sky pale blue. The roofs of the houses red, gray, and rich brown. The house at the extreme right should be a rich dark brown. The second house from the left should be this same brown, or a duller tone. The other houses may be gray, dull brown and putty color. Put a brown roof on the brown houses that are deep in color. The gray or putty colored houses can have the red roofs. The road in front of the houses is dust color. This scene may be a backdrop used for a shallow stage, or it may be a scene with wings. In this case duplicate the house at right, and place one just like it at left. It may differ in color, and will make an excellent wing.

Materials. Canvas or unbleached cotton. See page 138.

Construction. See page 138.

Lighting. Can be used as a daylight scene; or with moonlight (blue lights and white) can be a night scene. In this case there should be strong light from behind the back drop to shine through the little windows. Do not have all the windows transparent, only some of them. With a very shadowy scene one light burning in a high window will give the effect of a lonely watcher. If used for plays laid in the early history of America, in Boston or Salem, the houses should be white and brown, no red roofs. But New Amsterdam may have the coloring first described. This scene may be used for the first act of Josephine Peabody’s The Piper. For street scene in The Toymaker of Nuremberg. For street scene in Henry the Fifth. For background for an outdoor celebration of an Old English May Day or Merrymaking, with Morris Dances. For any street scene in Shakespearian comedy, laid in England.

Scene Plate 10

Scene. GARDEN.

Period. Elizabethan to the present.

Colors. Pale blue backdrop for sky with green trees stencilled on it. Wall of cream color, with brown oak door, and black wrought iron trimmings. Dark green box trees, or dipped ilex trees in jade green pots, or pots of Pompeiian red, according to the costumes that are to be used with the scene. If the wall is to be “stippled” that is, mottled to look like stone, this effect is obtained by mixing the right proportions of cobalt and whiting, taking care to mix the cobalt first. For cool gray, if a gray wall is to be used instead of a cream wall, mix with the white one-eighth Indian red, and oneeighth blue. For warm gray, add orange mineral. If the trees are to be shown in brilliant sunlight, orange will be found excellent for a few bright specks or pointillage, as it is called.

Materials. Canvas or unbleached cotton, painted. See pages 138-140.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

The floor cloth may be dark green, like turf. The pots and trees should be real.

Construction. There is a blue sky drop with trees painted on it. The wall is separate, and the door is on hinges and really opens and shuts. As the scene is given here it is intended for a decoration for a shallow stage eight feet deep. For a wide stage the wings at right and left might be formed of the same wall, with a door leading into a house. But in general garden sets are shallow. A cyclorama of blue sky is another way of giving an effect of a deep stage. This cyclorama is a sky curved, instead of flat. The sky is painted and placed in a semicircle that ends some five or six feet above the footlights.

Plays. This garden set will be suitable for Olivia’s garden in Twelfth Night. Also for the garden in Prunella. Or it may be the French garden of Rostand’s Romancers. With the trees removed and the benches like the Saxon bench on page 266, it may be a monastic garden. It can be the garden of Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac, or the convent garden in the Goddess of Reason.

Scene Plate 11 Scene. INTERIOR ROOM.

Period. Can be used from the Elizabethan period down to a modern library.

Countries. England, France and Germany. Later America.

Color. Brown oak panelled walls. Windows plain, or with rich armorial bearings on them. Over the hearth there should be either a portrait of someone in rich brocades and a ruff, or a bit of handsome tapestry. The latter is easiest to procure for amateurs. It should have a hint of gold and vivid blue or scarlet in it. The floor brown.

Materials. The scene may be painted on canvas, or, much easier, panelled wallpaper may be bought by the roll, and tacked to the wooden scene frame. It would be best to cover the frame with compo board first, as the wallpaper is perishable. The windows, which should swing inward, should be made of black paper for lead and paraffin paper for glass. Or paraffin paper with the leaded panes indicated with crayon or strips of black tissue paper will do. There should be logs and a ruddy fire.

Construction. See page 138. If this is to be a shallow backdrop it is all right as it stands. But most likely it will need sides, right and left. These should have panelled doors, and should be made of the same material as is shown in the picture and described above.

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Use upright mission furniture with this scene. It is the nearest thing to the correct heavy carved furniture that amateurs will be likely to get. If the windows are to be open see that there is a good backdrop behind them. This room, with hearth and windows exactly where they are, can be changed to a Colonial room very easily. Have no panels, but a creamcolored wall with a white baseboard. Take out the inner frame of the hearth, leaving it absolutely square. Put in the Colonial window on page 266. Have the doors plain, if side walls are used. For decorations have candles on the shelf, and some silhouettes in black frames. The bit of tapestry can still be used.

Scene Plate 12

Scene. WOODCUTTER’S, PEASANT’S, or WITCH’S HOUSE IN THE WOOD.

Period. From Elizabethan times to the present. For all fairytales. Colors. There are two ways of doing the backdrop. An effect of a cheerful wood, or a more or less cheerful wood, may be given by having a pale blue sky, dark brown tree trunks, and very dark almost black pine green boughs. But the effect of the wood is meant to be more or less sinister. For a truly sinister effect have sunset light deepening from rose to crimson, and against this have the trees stand in black silhouette. The floor cloth should be dark brown.

The little house should be gray, with a red roof, and a red or a brown door.

Construction. The backdrop of trees and sky should be painted on flax canvas, or unbleached muslin. See page 138. The little house should be large enough for children and small adults to enter, and should be separate, not painted on the backdrop, unless this is specially desired. It can be made constructed on a wooden frame, and then covered with compo board, and painted. See Chapter on Scenery. The window may be made of paraffin paper.

Lighting. For the sunset scene, no footlights, or only a very few footlights, white and red, should be used. But if possible it is better to quench the footlights, and have a few red and white lights along the proscenium border. The sunset effect can be managed from the back, if one is very skillful. Less skilled amateurs had better have the rosy light thrown from the spot light box. It should fade to the violet of dusk very gradually. The blue sky scene can be lit in the usual way. There are no difficulties about that.

Plays. For Hansel and Gretel, for Snow White. For Golden Hair and the

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS

Three Bears. For The Land of Memory in an amateur production of The Blue Bird.

Scene Plate 13

A PIRATE SHIP, or an OLD-FASHIONED or MEDIAEVAL SHIP.

Period. From the time of Queen Elizabeth down.

Countries. American, English, French, German, Flemish, Spanish.

Colors. The sky light blue, the sea darker blue. The ship brown oak.

Materials. The scene is painted on canvas or unbleached cotton. The rails and cabin may be made of the same material. The ropes are real.

Construction. The sky and water are on the backdrop. The cabin and railing are of painted canvas, made on wooden frames, or of compo board painted brown and tacked to wooden frames. The cabin should be built separately, like a small house, and made very firmly, as exits can be made up and down the ladder and through the doors. The cabin may be twelve or fourteen feet wide, the sides of the boat according to the stage they end at the side footlights. The bare floor of the stage may be used for the deck of the ship. For mixing paints, etc., see chapter on Scenery.

Lighting. Can be a daylight scene, or with the stage darkened, and lights coming from the doors, and lanterns hung in the rigging, can be a night scene. In this case a spot light will have to be used with old-fashioned stages.

Plays, For Pinafore, without the pirate trappings. With the pirate trappings, the Pirates of Penzance. For Drake, by Louis N. Parker.

Scene Plate 14

MODERN YACHT, or SHIP, according to play.

Period. From 1850 to the present.

Countries. America, England, and the Continent.

Colors. The sky pale blue, the water deep blue, the boat white.

Materials. Painted canvas. The railing may be made of actual wire, with wooden posts, or a tennis net could be used.

Construction. Sky and water are on backdrop. The ventilator and hatchway are wings.

CHAPTER 10 Furniture Plates

1. ROMAN CHAIR. A chair of state for a Roman emperor or general. It was used in Rome, and from the ninth to the thirteenth century in England, Denmark, France, Scotland, Ireland, where it was a chair of state, seen in the houses of Kings and nobles, but never in the houses of peasants. It is the type of chair always used in productions of Hamlet. It was extensively used in the Napoleonic Era, and then, as in Rome, it was a chair of state. It should be made of dark wood.

2. SAXON SEAT. Used from the first to the twelfth centuries in the houses of nobles and peasants alike, and after that used in monasteries, inns, and peasant’s houses up to the eighteenth century. It was used in England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland and France. Is made of dark wood, or plain pine. Plain pine for peasants, and dark wood for the houses of nobles and for monasteries. It is a most useful piece of furniture for Miracle and Morality plays, and for folk and fairy as well as historical plays.

3. MEDIAEVAL THRONE CHAIR or CHAIR or STATE. Used from the tenth to the seventeenth century in England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Flanders. Is useful as an ecclesiastic chair for dignitaries in cathedrals and Bishop’s palaces for such dramas as Becket and for such plays as Henry V. In the latter it is used as a throne chair. It is made of solid wood, with a wooden seat. For highly decorative purposes the two ovals of the back may be covered with purple or scarlet leather (leatherette), and the strip up the back gilded. A cushion of the same color as the ovals should be put into the seat of the chair.

4. SIMPLE CHAIR WHICH CAN BE USED PROM 1650 TO THE PRESENT. Is made of wood with a rush seat. Is excellent for Colonial scenes. For scenes earlier than Colonial it should be dark; for Colonial scenes it should be painted white.

5.COLONIAL WINDOW, which will change the room in Scene Plate 11 into a Colonial room if the walls of the room are painted a light color.

CHAPTER 1 1 Open Air Greek Theater

The words open air Greek Theater have an ornate and for some ears an expensive sound. But if people only realized how little ingenuity and money it takes to have a really servicable Greek Theater, there would be hundreds of them springing up throughout the country as a means of permanent delight. Many people associate the word Greek Theater with the idea of a huge Stadium such as the one in California, or the Adolph Lewisohn Stadium in New York City, but as a matter of fact a small stadium is not only perfectly feasible but well adapted to small communities or even to the school yard. The ideal small Greek Theater might be copied after the Brookside Theater at Mount Kisko, New York.

Select a stage that will be, if possible, one hundred feet long and fifty feet deep. Have it as level as possible, and have it of turf that will have springiness and give beneath the feet for dancing. This stage should have as a background or permanent backdrop either a lovely vista as in Mount Kisko, where rolling hills and placid intervales melt into blue distance, or there should be trees and shrubbery so cunningly placed all across the back that they give the effect of solid green, and yet allow the characters to enter and exit. In a place where the background is lovely, yet where there are no trees, a wire lattice overrun with vines can be used as a background for the pillars, and it will give a glimpse of the vista at each side. The posts supporting this wire lattice should be painted a very dark green so that they will not intrude upon the eye.

Across the back of this greensward stage the white pillars are placed in a semicircle. There is space enough between each pillar for a character or group of characters to enter upon the scene.

Across from the stage is the place for the audience. It should seat from one hundred to three hundred. A sloping hillside is ideal, for people can bring rugs and cushions and have a fine view. Or a permanent grandstand may be constructed. This may be of wood, left to weather until it is lichen gray. Or if the hillside is of shale, it may be cut into the rock. Or a ridge of stone seats may be erected. These, like the seats at the theater of the Outdoor Players at Peterborough, New Hampshire, may be built of field stones, as a stone wall is built, and than overlaid with four inches of cement on top,

which gives a smooth, bench-like effect. This is a very pretty way to arrange seats for an outdoor theater.

For the theater itself, all that is needed are six pillars, placed in a semicircle. It does not matter whether they are Grecian or Roman, fluted or plain. They should have a coping along the top, to connect them. As a background, they can be varied by draperies and accessories. Great earthen or copper jars such as are seen in Maxfield Parrish’s pictures may be placed against the pillars in the foreground. These jars may be jade green, copper colored, Pompeiian red, or dull blue. The veriest tyro can fashion them out of sculptor’s clay and color them with pigments. The pillars can also be backed on occasion by colored curtains, looped in the center. These may be turquoise blue, pale yellow, Tyrian purple, or for a color scheme of very dark costumes, Pompeiian red.

For a temple of Flora in which a masque of Spring is to be given these pillars may be wound with great garlands of roses real roses, or artificial ones. A Greek table and bench made of wood rather than of stone so that they can be moved, are essential properties.

There may be a shrine placed at the back of, or between the two center pillars. In this shrine, which can be made of plaster of paris, is a sunken bowl in which incense may be burned, and here offerings may be made, as vestal dances are given.

The plays given in this theater must of necessity be either Greek, Roman, or plays of fantasy. It may be used for Midsummer’s Night’s Dream the foreground for a wood near Athens, the pillars for the court scenes. For Pandora or Persephone or for a masque of Pomona this theater may also be used. Julius Caesar may be also given in it. The mythical plays by Lord Dunsany are also possible, and with this background The Sleeping Beauty and King Rene’s Daughter.

All these plays may be given in the daytime. The same plays may be given at night with footlights carefully screened by very low plants. Electric lights may also be inverted in the coping of the pillars.

The pillars may always be bought or ordered from a firm of contractors, or they may be obtained from the Hartwell Sanders Co., 2155 Elston Avenue, Chicago, Ill., for $2.75 a piece, making the whole theater total, with its coping included, $20.00, if a hillside is used for a grandstand. These pillars are eight feet high, made of white pine or cypress. The HartmanSanders catalogue gives excellent ideas along these lines. Greek furniture for the outdoor theater may be obtained from the North Shore Ferneries Co., Beverly, Mass. Their catalogue will prove invaluable to anyone contemplating such a theater.

Folk Festivals

THEIR GROWTH AND HOW TO GIVE THEM

Preface

It is with the hope that this fruit of my own experiences may inspire others to blaze trails, that I send out Folk Festivals. Not in any way does it aim to be exhaustive. Rather the material has been chosen with the idea that it may create a desire to give festivals, and at the same time furnish a working basis for them. Because I firmly believe that the value of this movement must be in its research, its spontaneity, and its creativeness, I have so limited the material. At the same time I have tried to make the book practical for those who are pioneers both in their interest and in their work on festivals.

To my pupils to whom I went to school, I owe much. To Miss Esther Braley and to Mr. Frank A. Manny, I am indebted for help in blazing my own trail. Not only did they give me courage at the start, but they have stayed by me along the path. Without the active and faithful Interest of Mr. William Hard the book would not have been written. For the great task of reading my manuscript I owe a commensurate gratitude to Mr. H. K. Bassett and to Mr. Manny. And for the encouragement and interest which made the daily work in it possible, I am indebted to my husband.

Foreword

A barber in a Philadelphia club sighed as he said to me recently, “The World’s great events” are all over! “It took me a moment to regain myself sufficiently to realize that he was discussing baseball! Few interests and activities are so thoroughly social as some of the popular sports and games. Within a few hours after a great contest a hundred thousand people are awakened and thrilled as little else could stir them, so dependent upon others have they become for opportunities for experiences which carry with them strong emotions.

This widespread common interest is a great gain but we need much more general participation. Children and adults alike must be active themselves to gain the recreation and growth of imagination and invention they require. It is this that gives to them that prolongation of the period of growth so necessary to give balance and meaning to the specialization necessary in earning a living.

Man playing is needed as well as man thinking and man working. The stress upon thought and work in the development of modern life led for a time to an undervaluation of many social tools, as the festival and the game, which had been of great significance in earlier periods. Man lightens his baggage as new needs arise and supposes that he is through with whatever of impedimenta he has cast aside. Sooner or later, however, he or his descendants learn that one reason for lessening the load is that, by this means, strength and experience may be secured to regain and use more adequately some of the material which was considered at one time a hindrance.

The pioneer who carries the seeds of progress to a new frontier must select his pack with care. He finds an art joy in his new labors without recognizing it as an art and he has little regret for the carnivals and feast days he has left behind. But as his work becomes more social and involves wider relationships the simple individual machinery is insufficient and he must have communication or his task will fail. In the life that “no man liveth unto himself alone,” the means of communication make him social and give him art.

In America the devotion of the pioneer has made possible a new state of commerce and manufacture, and now more effective use of what has been accomplished waits upon a rebirth of still other social activities

those most immediately concerned with health and joy and appreciation. The festival has played an important part in the life of the past. It has survived during strenuous periods under the names of entertainment, show, social, sociable, etc. At present it is proving itself a part of the democratic movement. On the one hand it calls out the powers of invention and energizing activity of the individual and, on the other, it reveals to him his best opportunities for self-expression or better self-communication in active association with others. Speech, music, gesture, pantomime, acting, play, the dance, stage setting and adaptation with many other arts join to furnish a tool of wonderful possibilities. To the observer of a great festival in which thousands of children take part the future of a generation trained in this way is significant for democracy and art. This is more evident if he has followed the earlier steps of the process and has seen how children and grown people have developed in meeting responsibilities, in putting their thoughts and feelings into material form and have developed character from what they have created.

Mrs. Needham’s experiences leading up to this book have been of this nature. The work of her many students has been remarkably cooperative yet the individuals concerned have had little chance to lose their selfactivity. In fact the joy of unaccustomed freedom of participation often led to revelations of unexpected power of work and persistence. The result was that whether the undertaking was a simple pantomime or dramatization by little children, a Dutch or Hungarian festival involving the searching out of disappearing immigrant customs, or a standard play, the final rendering was a new creation.

Wise handling of this kind of work gives technique impossible through formal drill alone. The start made in these festivals opened up long vistas of meaningful experience in which reading; writing; adequate speech, song, movement and posture; the conservation of family customs (too often a source of misunderstanding to the young); the culture and life of the past, all become tools to aid in realizing and enriching the activities called for by present needs.

Both to those who require help to make a start and to those who are ready for further guidance on the way this book will be very welcome.

PART 1

The Pioneer Festival

“What’s the use of even talking about it? I can’t I can’t go to that anniversary! I’m tired of exhuming dead dust. We can’t have anything alive in this town, or anyone! Everyone that has a spark of life leaves before he dries up and dies. Even the children can’t run a lemonade stand for two hours the town is too dead to support it! Then think of planning an ‘anniversary in honor of our patriots.’ Humph! I’m going to leave and go on the stage, or join the circus. Anything where there’s something doing.”

“Pollie,” remonstrated her mother, “you can’t know what you are saying. This town that you speak of so slightingly is one of the historic places of your country, and in your veins flows the blood of some of the heroes of this nation.” And Mrs. Williams lifted her head proudly.

“Historic places! Heroes!” snapped Pollie. “What good does that do me? All I know is that up and down the street are little slabs stating: ‘Here lies thing-um-a-gum that shot, mangled and killed two hundred and fifty regiments of soldiers.’ ‘This stone marks the place where the effigy of King George was burned by our patriots.’ ‘Here was the home of the Colonel who led our first company To Arms in the Revolutionary War,’ and so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Well,” and Pollie got up in her excitement, “what about it? They all did something. That’s why a slab is stuck up. But what do we do, and what do they mean to us? Just stones to scrape the mud off our shoes when we come in from the marshes and to point theatrically toward when our relatives visit this quaint town.”

“Pollie,” gasped her mother. “You ”

“If I could be carried off by Indians,” continued Pollie, too excited to be interrupted, “and nearly murdered, and escape from my Indian master in Canada, as one of my remote grandfathers did, why I’d I’d I’d think a little more of him,” she asserted paradoxically. “But I’m sick of his name and I’m not going to any anniversary, ‘in honor of our patriots,’ and hear Sarah Spencer read some of her poems on our ‘wonderful town and our heroic progenitors;’ and hear Pastor Brown pray for our especially-blessedby-Providence town, and listen to the school children recite orations on, ‘Heroes every child should know.’ Can’t I just remember how I got that stuff

for my oration out of stupid histories and encyclopedias!”

“Pollie, you must stop this tirade. I can’t understand how you ”

“Now please don’t say anything. I’m tired and sick of the whole performance of these anniversaries and holidays. I want to do something myself — not just sit around and bask in the fact that a hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago I had a few ancestors who did something, or else were ‘done for’ themselves in that everlasting massacre of ours. We’ll never hear the end of that massacre. You’d think this country supported only one. I quite agree with Uncle Williams who grunted out the other day that he thought it was about time we had another massacre and killed off a few of these ‘squaws’ who don’t talk about anything else.”

“Pollie, how can you say these things before Jane?” asked her sister, who entered with her friend. “You are a rebellious child.”

“So were my grandfathers,” was the answer. “They’re the cause of it all — me included.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Jane, the friend, as a happy idea struck her, “why don’t you give a festival?”

“Festival,” sneered Pollie. “How can we? The strawberries are all gone!”

“Strawberries?” echoed Jane in surprise.

“Yes — can’t have a festival without them.”

“Child, what do you mean? Just think of the word — F-e-s-t-i-v-a-1. How does it sound?”

“Sounds gloomy to me,” answered Pollie, whose only remembrance of a festival was one whole day spent in culling strawberries for an entertainment advertised as a “Strawberry Festival for the Benefit of Memorial Hall — where are preserved the Sacred Trophies of the Founders of this Town.”

“Gloomy! Why, it’s nothing but jollity and joy and doing, doing, doing,” rejoined Jane. “Why, you can be one of your ‘remote ancestors’ as you call them and do just what they did, and ”

“How?”

“See here, didn’t one of your ‘remote’ grandmothers do anything?”

“Yes, got herself killed! but ” and Pollie’s face lighted up. “Yes, she did do something. When the Indians came in and were shooting down the door, she wakened the children, gathered them around her and escaped down a secret staircase, and concealed the children in the hollow of an old tree. Then, because it wasn’t large enough to hold her, she ran quickly away in another direction so as to divert the Indians’ attention from her children. And then, you know, she let the Indians capture her; but they found the children, of course, and carried them all off to Canada, and then she was rescued, and then, just as she got nearly home the Indians found her and

killed her. Yes, she did do something,” and Pollie nodded her head thoughtfully.

“Well,” said Jane, “don’t you see you can be your ‘remote’ grandmother, and we can get Gordon Cotton to be your ‘remote’ grandfather he’s big and strong, and looks something like their pictures and the school boys can be the Indians and some French soldiers and we can have the whole scene right over.”

Pollie’s eyes brightened. Was it possible to make anniversaries really interesting? “Let’s do it!” she said with all the energy of youth. And they did.

The Old Deerfield Historical Pageant given on the grounds of the Allen Homestead in July, 1910, was memorable for the Illuminating flashes that it gave of the town and its people, covering a period of over two hundred years. Like Pollie, many in the pageant were lineal descendants of the early settlers and represented their own ancestors in the episodes.

In the picturesque yard, back of the quaint homestead, the slope of the ground formed an amphitheater, and the stage screened with laurel and backed by trees and bushes seemed a natural, rather than an artificial, part of the setting. From here the meadow swept to the dark woods on the side of the environing hills, and in the evening they threw their cloak of mystery over the whole presentation as if concealing in their shadows the spirits of those who, for a little time, had played their part upon this stage and had left behind them the fragrance of old memories revived in this, the “play” of other years.

As the first lights flashed upon the stage it was a scene of England that met the eye a scene of festive village folk making merry round the Maypole with their Morris dances and their glees. As they were reveling about their May Queen a figure in sharp contrast walked solemnly and slowly out of the shadow. It was a black-garbed parson followed by a band of Puritans whom the King and Church were “harrying” out of England. For a moment they threw a shadow on the merry-makers as they wended their way to Plymouth to embark on the Mary and John, and to follow, ten years after the Mayflower, to the land of Peace. In the company were the grand-parents of some of the early settlers of Deerfield.

While they were tossing on the ocean, we catch a glimpse of the meadows that afterwards became Deerfield, when the Pocumtucks, the leading tribe of that valley, lived there on the banks of the Deerfield River.

Over two hundred years ago the people of the Old World and the people of the New met to exchange their wares not always to their mutual benefit. But the purchase of the Pocumtuck lands was an unusually fair

one. To be sure, the Pocumtucks had hitherto been the kings of that valley. The Connecticut and Deerfield rivers, and the meadows and hills around, had furnished them their hunting and fishing. On the top of Pine Hill, which is now covered with Lombardy poplars and peacefully overlooks the little stream that winds around its base, they had their stronghold. But the Mohawks made battle and revenge on them for murdering a messenger who had been sent to mediate between them, and their stronghold was destroyed and they were almost wiped out. Therefore, it was a fortune that came to them from the white men in the form of a payment for these lands which, on account of their enemy, were no longer of use to them. It also seemed propitious to the selectmen of Dedham that this beautiful valley, so richly endowed by Nature, should be free from grants, and therefore open to them. In the Memorial Hall the people of Deerfield could look any day upon that deed signed by “ye sachem of Pacumtuck, in 1696.” Never before, though, had they actually seen Colonel Pynchon, whom the selectmen of Dedham had chosen to purchase the eight thousand acres, when, in company with other colonists, he met that band of Indians, and according to their ceremonies, paid over to them the four pence an acre and received in return that deed preserved for over two centuries as the proof of the honest tenure of their homes. It was good to have one glance of the Indians giving and receiving in fairness of exchange, and the Hunt Dance which followed to the accompaniment of weird Indian music seemed to complete this picture of the Indian as yet uncontaminated by warfare and commerce with the Whites. But was there not a forecast of the scenes to follow in that warwhoop which echoed down from the hills after the Indians had leaped into the gloom of the surrounding woods? One could vividly fancy the shivers in the hearts of the early colonists, as they listened always for this echo and its attendant warning.

Then through the meadows on the right came an ox-cart. In it were Samuel Hinsdell and his Puritan wife, by name Experience. So did the first settlers of Deerfield come, and as one saw them making their way with the few household implements and treasures in the ox-cart, one wondered what courage sustained these first settlers who, breaking with all their ties, leaving behind them those that they loved and the little familiar objects of everyday life, casting aside all other human companionship, were able, nay, anxious to come and build their lonely hearth in the wilderness. Of course others soon followed, but these “first settlers” came alone in the oxcart; they built the first house; and to them was born the first child of Deerfield, Mehuman Hinsdell. No, we may have looked on Courage but we have never seen that side of her face.

As Pollie said, every one who goes to Deerfield is told about “the massacre” of September 18, 1675 and no wonder for it was, as a contemporary said, “that most fatal day, the saddest that ever befel New England.” In the old Indian Cemetery is a mound a silent witness to the sixty-four men buried in this one “dreadful grave.” The story of that day testified that the war-whoop of the Indians was no longer an echo. King Philip had incited the Indians to attacks on the frontier towns so that soldiers had to be sent from the Bay to protect the inhabitants. They had their headquarters at Hadley, a settlement only a few miles from Deerfield, with Colonel Pynchon as their commander-in-chief. He ordered the wheat harvested, and sent Captain Thomas Lathrop, with his company, to bring it to Hadley in Deerfield teams. So in the early morning, when the birds were singing in the trees, and the little brook went gurgling white and clear through the thicket at the side of the woods, “Captain Lathrop, with his choice company of young men, the very flower of the county of Essix,” started with his slow-moving teams. Marching through the woods he came to the brook in the swampy thicket. As they started to cross the nameless stream, the soldiers laid down their arms to eat some of the purple grapes that grew by the way. The war-whoop was no echo now. Of the seventeen fathers and brothers who had left Deerfield in the morning not one returned. They had fallen by that stream, which, baptized by the blood of this “Flower of Essix,” received its name, Bloody Brook. No history of Deerfield no visit to Deerfield Deerfield itself is not complete without “the massacre.” Therefore, it was fair to assume that no historical pageant would be complete without it. But how could a massacre be made vivid without being offensive? It spoke much for the “poetry” of those in charge of the pageant that the only evidence of the massacre itself was in a fusillade of rifle shots, fired in the near-by woods. We had seen Captain Lathrop and his men start with the carts; we knew to what they were going; and when the shots came the impressive silence bespoke a recognition of the waste and the tragedy of that pioneer time and of those who gave their blood for us.

No wonder that after this Deerfield was deserted. But Courage hovered over the valley and beckoned most of the settlers back. So the next scene in the pageant showed Deerfield after it had become a permanent settlement. This episode, in fact, occurred on the actual spot where the pageant was being presented, for it was here that Mistress Hannah Beaman, the first school dame, lived and taught the children of the village. Now she comes again from her house dressed in her quaint and simple costume, with the little white cap on her head; and back of her, in the same old-time dresses

and their smaller white caps, comes her flock. How she smiled on them as they sang their school songs, and the more sing-songy they were the more the school dame smiled. She smiled, too, at the boy who went out to the well for a drink of water. But the smile faded at the warning of the little boy that the Indians were coming. Terrified, Mistress Beaman gathered her flock around her and carrying the littlest one in her arms rushed for the stockade at the right of the grounds. All reached it in safety except the little boy who had gone for the drink of water. He had fallen a prey to the Indians who, led or hired by the French soldiers, were creeping on to the town.

This was a time of war, not peace, and Queen Anne’s war brought bitter desolation the desolation of death and worse than that, the desolation of captivity and in Memorial Hall are pictures and records of those captured by the Indians. We saw the savages as they surprised the sleeping town and each claimed a captive. We saw John Williams, the pastor, as he was led out of the “Old Indian House” by an Indian. We admired him and wondered at him when we saw how erect and unafraid he seemed. But it was not so with Dame Williams. Slowly, as if she were falling in her grief and terror, she was dragged along by her captor. She turned back often to look at their five children; at little Stephen who had not forgotten his silver buttons and buckles, and at small Eunice, who, touching some chord in her captor’s heart, was carried in his arms. After her came maidens and youths, some solemn, some shrinking, many terrified, as they started on their long three hundred mile march to Canada. We watched them in silence as they climbed the hill and were swallowed up in the gloom of the woods.

It was with relief that we saw that the next scene was not to be another such a desolate one, although it did afford food for speculation. Here was Eunice Williams, a child no longer. She was dressed in Indian garb and was called by an Iroquois name that meant, “they took her and made her a member of their tribe,” and neither prayer nor threat could ever procure her ransom. She married an Indian and died an Indian!

In contrast to this was an episode showing Jonathan Hoyt, another captive, redeemed from the market in Quebec where, overlooked by his Indian master, he was selling vegetables. When the Indian had taken the twenty silver dollars which Governor Dudley’s son, then on a mission to redeem captives, gave to him, Jonathan Hoyt’s safety seemed assured. There was a dramatic moment, however, when the Indian was seen to regret his bargain. He started to follow but he was too late and came back alone.

To those who had puzzled over the translation of a church record or

over the story, telling how two captives were married in Canada and there renounced their nation, wishing to live as savages with the Christian Indians, the scene of their marriage was watched with great interest.

Then there came a pause, and in an impressive stillness, a solitary rider came slowly down the hill. It was John Williams, their captured minister, who had preached to them since 1684, and as one voice the Puritans greeted him in the song “Be Thou, O God, Exalted High.” To celebrate the return of their pastor they joined in a service of praise and thanksgiving. No bell summoned them. They came at the call of the drum, while a sentry kept a sharp outlook. Men were on the right, women were on the left, so placed by the committee who “dignifie and seat the meeting-house.” The deacon read out a line of “Old Hundred” and the people sang it, but already the rising generation could be felt in the compromise that was made when they sang, “Jerusalem, My Happy Home,” by “rule.”

After such stormy times, a scene showing the Indians trading with the villagers rather than massacring them or capturing them was a happy one, although we did not quite trust the dusky squaws gliding into the doorway with their mats and baskets, hoping for some return, or the hunters bringing their spoils upon their shoulders to exchange for tobacco and powder.

In “A Colonial Wedding,” Scene IX of the pageant, there was a glimpse of the brilliance of colonial times. It was the marriage of James Corse of Deerfield, the landlord of a tavern. Better times had come now. Some of the grimness of battle and defeat had given place to show and pomp. The guests came on foot and on pillioned horses; in chaise and in coach; came from far and near, to join in the wedding feast and dance. They were dressed in silks and brocades and all the flavor of the times was vivified in the dance led by the bride and bridegroom in the garden with its old-fashioned flowers throwing out their fragrance.

As one walks down the one street of Old Deerfield, one comes upon a bowlder and on it reads that it marks the spot where the liberty pole was planted July 29, 1774. This was not done without opposition, for it is written about the first pole brought for the purpose, that, “By some Malicious Person, Inimical to his Country ye sd Pole was sawn in sunder.” Yes, there were Tories at Deerfield, true Tories. When the order to drink no tea came, they resisted it. The parson, the judge, and esquire, the three doctors, most of the town officers, and many others would not give up their tea. But it was difficult to secure it.

As the people gathered in Scene XI, “Parson Ashley’s Tea Party,” it could be seen by their air that this was no common tea party. The stagecoach in all its splendor brought some of the guests in their most gorgeous

attire. They spiritedly greeted the Loyalist and his package marked “Monongahela Balsam,” and they defiantly drank the tea which it contained. And when they joined in the minuet it was with a special dignity as if by so doing they were more strictly adhering to the old country.

The Tories were care-free and confident, and there were many of them, but when on the twentieth of April the galloping messenger cried, “To Arms! Gage has fired upon the people! Minutemen to the rescue! Now is the time, Cambridge the place,” there were fifty men ready with Captain Locke and Lieutenant Joseph Stebbins at their head and Justin Hitchcock’s fife to keep them in step. In this final scene of the pageant it was keenly felt that here was some of the backbone that made this country a nation, and in the tableau that followed the Grand Army of the Republic saluting the flag it was further impressed that by such as these was the nation preserved. And the reason for the nation’s strength was more clearly understood after witnessing the scenes depicting through what vicissitudes and courage it had grown.

In towns and cities of late years there has been a great tendency toward “Street Fair Weeks” and “Homecoming Weeks” as municipal activities and celebrations. They have taken the place of the county fair with its displays and side shows and merry-go-rounds, now, for industrial reasons, almost unknown. Usually these celebrations are incited and financed by the town’s chamber of commerce or some similar body and are largely for the purpose of bringing money into the city. Sometimes their by-products, as in the renewal of old ties and the new vision of old times, are of value. But the celebration itself is usually pretty bad, having no points of central interest, no outlook, and no perspective other than commercial. The Historical Pageant at Deerfield, it will be seen at once, was quite different. Here, the by-product was money, and there was a good deal of that, too, running into four figures but the product itself was of a finer brilliance and left something of a wondrous light shining on all within the village.

For those communities that may desire to give a municipal festival of this kind, some of the organization of the Deerfield Pageant may be of value. In the first place, there was the Mistress of the Pageant, who overlooked and directed all arrangements. The Patrons and Patronesses included the Governor of the State and other people of note. The people were divided into Committees of the Pageant. There was an Executive Committee, an Historical Censor, an Advertising Committee, the Music Committee, a Costume Committee, the Property Committee, the Committee on Grounds, a Committee on Seats, a Committee in Charge of Horses, and a Committee in Charge of Oxen. Announcements were printed and sent all

over the State and distributed in the hotels and other public places. Arrangements to postpone the pageant should the weather be stormy or uncertain were made known. In planning for the programmes advertisements were solicited, most of which were paid for in advance, thus taking care of the initial expense. Some of the merchants in Greenfield situated about three miles distant were asked to contribute part of the necessary material, for as there were no merchants in Deerfield, they would profit by the pageant, A lumber company, for instance, loaned material for making the benches, on the understanding that only that which was spoiled by nails need be paid for. Of course everybody was willing and glad to give of his time, even when he had little, and most of the women made their costumes while those for the men were hired from a firm in Boston.

Having a committee of one or more in each scene, who should take part in that scene, conduct rehearsals, find and look after properties, and in general be responsible for the scene (directed of course by the director of the pageant), simplified things very materially. It is quite surprising that a big festival and pageant of this sort, involving many people, can be carried on with comparatively little difficulty by working with units. Thus each scene can be rehearsed and completed by itself, and so is fairly simple. Then, if the director is competent, as Miss Eager of Deerfield was, it is not necessary to have a rehearsal of all scenes together more than once, and sometimes not at all. So, by this comparatively simple organization, was effected the Old Deerfield Historical Pageant.

Pollie thought much better of her ancestors after this pageant. She understood them better for she had lived with them for a while and during that time she was able, not only to interpret them to herself and to other people, but to express some of her own powers. Now the case of Pollie is but the case of a healthy, normal being rebelling against conditions that prevail in many of our smaller eastern towns; those towns that maintain their existence by the memories and traditions of the past rather than by any industrial activity of to-day. Because such towns fought and bled in woe and desolation that those who came after might have life and have it more abundantly, they stand ever as monuments. In the days when each family constituted an industrial system of its own, when the needs of life food, clothing, and shelter could be supplied by following native instincts and so fulfilling spiritual as well as material needs, these towns were very much alive. Had Pollie lived then she would probably have gone quietly through her days, satisfied because she was “doing” something. But the man and woman of to-day is attracted to Deerfield because of its ancient elms and purple hills and weather-beaten houses dignified by the memories of a

famous past. There is little present or future there now. The spinning and the weaving are done elsewhere. Factories in other cities have taken away all the mechanical industries, and the person who is alive, as Pollie says, leaves if it is possible, before he dries up and dies. Deerfield is not an isolated example of this tragedy. In every section of the country are deserted villages that once were the center of throbbing life.

In a gallery in London is a picture by Turner called “The Great Western Express.” Attracted by the name (for it is hardly a name we would choose ourselves for a picture), we look more closely. First we are conscious of color the color of forces but forces disturbed, forces in a cataclysm; and then as we go nearer in the midst of the color we see the cause of it all the engine the Great Western Express Civilization throbbing through the wilderness, violently subverting all conditions. In the track of this overwhelming change are left many deserted villages, which, like Deerfield, may attract the students of history but not Pollie. No wonder she hated those “anniversaries in honor of our patriots.” They were nothing but stupid programmes of orations, essays, history; all dead, all drudgery, all about people who did something while she could do nothing but talk about them. Unfortunately, this is usually the kind of programme that we arrange in “honor of our patriots.” Washington’s Birthday is generally celebrated by exercises in which are numberless essays on George Washington and his every attribute, true or imagined, until he seems to be nothing but a puppet, dragged hither and yon by the cords which we have arranged for our show. A man, a human being, he seldom is. With glad hearts we turn our backs on the father of our country and go out to play, thanking him, not because he saved our country (he never was made that real to us), but because he gave us a holiday for play. On Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, we frequently see, in a school, a picture tacked up on the blackboard, a few rolls of bunting twisted around it and the dates of his birth and death on either side, and I ask you, can you think of two more uninteresting dates in the life of any person than those of his death and birth? There is little or no spirit in these celebrations; there is little or no meaning. Holidays are not made in that fashion. We have certain days set apart for celebration but we don’t know how to celebrate them. What do George Washington’s birthday, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July mean to us? Do they inculcate any more patriotism? Do they make any more vivid to us the people or the events that mark them as mountain peaks in the history of our nation?

Perhaps the reason for this is a fundamental error in our national life. We do too many things vicariously. We can never really know a thing until

we do it or act on it. Since the invention of printing we have a great fund of information constantly before us. We analyze, we discuss, we argue and we cogitate, but, I repeat, until we do a thing or act on it, we do not know it. In many things we hark back to the Middle Ages when observation and investigation came to a standstill, and science was taught from the desk. There was much contentious writing and debating appertaining to the number of teeth of the horse and nobody seemed to think of the very simple expedient of actually counting the teeth of a horse. We learn things that are in books, we investigate when we can do it in a library, but we will seldom count the teeth of the horse ourselves. The result is that we have many dreamers and few doers in anything except commercial progress.

Now the need of “doing something” is a human hunger. “We are made in order to act as much as and more than in order to think or rather when we follow the bent of our nature, it is in order to act that we think,” says Bergson. The trouble with us in this over-civilized day is that we don’t follow the bent of our nature. We take our play and our activities vicariously.

In one of our great state universities is a professor of economics who spends most of his time in his classroom teaching, or in his library studying. His recreation, his play, he gets by reading detective stories as many as twenty a week and the more bloodthirsty they are, the more they scream and shriek, the better is he satisfied. He is a small, rather meek-eyed, quiet little professor and one doesn’t suspect him of criminal inclinations; but not being able to feed this hunger by doing something active himself he feeds it through the incessant doings of detective stories.

Perhaps the primary function in the Deerfield Pageant and Festival was to allow the inhabitants who had been basking in the light of their ancestors’ “doing” to step out into the light of their own doing, and to fulfill the bent of their own natures. So, through this festival they came into fuller life themselves and built surer foundations for the future of their village, because they formed a conception of what their past was by getting inside of it and seeing how it felt. This is just what a child does when he plays his game, and imitates his elders. He gets inside of them, sees how it feels himself, and so he grows; and when the time comes for him to be a hunter or a soldier or any of the other personages with which he fills his day, he is ready for it. Surely, it is as necessary to do this in order to untie the knot of the great national drama which we are acting on the stage of our country as it is in order to be the Macbeth and King Lear or Hamlet of the great Shakespearian stage. And to live in the personages and events of this festival, not only thinking about them, or feeling concerning them, but thinking them,

feeling them, aye, living them, would mean much more to these people, would enable them, as a community, to adapt themselves much more wisely, than months and years of orations and prayers and essays.

On the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Norwich, Connecticut, the town held a celebration. In a series of dramatic pictures they illustrated the period before the white man came as well as that after. In one picture, the “Last of the Mohicans,” who live in their own settlement near Norwich, showed in some typical dances and ceremonies what the region was like before the white man came. Then there was a scene picturing the story of the feud between the Mohicans and Narragansetts, ending in the battle of East Great Plain. The scene shifted, and George Washington and his soldiers trooped across the stage. Finally, the Boys of ’61 members of the local Grand Army of the Republic marched off to the Civil War. Perhaps the most significant part of this commemorative festival was the pageant or procession to which each of the foreign colonies contributed a float, thus weaving the foreign threads into one mighty American knot.

Before “The Great Western Express” or call it Civilization fought its cataclysmic way through our hitherto interminable distances, only Indian trails, threads tangled and broken, united the East and the West. Here and there a rough pioneer road was hewn out, working great political and commercial changes along its highway. But in the first part of the nineteenth century appeared a road “different from the others in its masterful suggestion of a serious purpose, speeding you along with a strange uplifting of the heart.” It was of a sterner sort, this first National road that America ever built, legally known as the Cumberland Road. Down it with our pioneers rode our national hopes, for these tillers of the ground bore in their hands not swords, but axes and hoes, and without these pioneers we would not exist as a nation to-day. It takes more than a sword to win the war; it takes the compelling force and resistance of this pioneer army to win the struggle and war of extermination. And this army does not march to the blood-stirring music of battle; no flags are unfurled before its ranks. Humbly and unrecognized it wins its battles; its life, the details of its everyday existence, are often commonplace; its great events frequently buried in obscurity. But without this army, England and France lost the country; and with it, and because of it, we stand to-day united as a nation and have not perished from the earth. The milestones on the old Cumberland Road are tottering; the taverns are deserted, and not even a wreath is seen on the half-forgotten graves by Its waysides. And yet down it, on their way Into the unbroken jungle, went many of our pioneers. With them walked Courage

in his gay and brilliant trappings, and in more somber hue. Endurance, hand in hand with Resolution, and leading all the rest were Hope and Power, in the hands of the women were flowers, for a pioneer woman never forgot the seeds of her hollyhocks and the bulbs of her pinks, and if the wilderness has blossomed like the rose for us, it is because these women, in their hearts and in their hands, bore a few pink roots and a few hollyhock seeds. The journey on that Pioneer Road was made not so many years ago, for when we, in the West, travel back one hundred years, we come to the unbroken trail of the Indian. In no other nation have we a tradition so unique. We are living with our pioneers. We do not have to go back twenty-seven hundred years, as did the people of Bath, England, in their pageant, to meet our founders. Some of them sit on our doorsteps. They are perishing by our fireplaces and not perishing in the light of day. There are so many things we must learn of them, so little time for them to tell us, and we are letting that little slip by. We push them into the corners; they are rough, they are crude, they are well, they are “Pioneers,” we say when we are ashamed of our grandfathers. But, as Napoleon says, “War cannot be made with rosewater.” To build a home, to sustain a home, to be a part of the great movement of life, surely is not an ignoble attainment. They have cleared the way for the younger generation; they have experienced a life that we can know only through them. When the mantle of labor falls from them they take their place by the fire, asking no alms and I am afraid receiving few. The more shame to us that we do not crown them with laurel and sit at their knees with bowed and reverent heads for they are the Prophets and only through them can we see the future.

A Children’s Pioneer Festival

Like Pollie, the girls and boys in a schoolroom in a small town in the southern part of Michigan, had grown tired of their “exercises.” “We don’t want to learn any more pieces,” they said. And nothing that the teacher suggested could arouse them. About this time there was offered in the Extension Department of a Normal school, a Course on Festivals, and the teacher, driven by her need, entered it. The work on the pioneers was particularly stimulating to her, for she thought of this little town asleep by the great sand dunes of Lake Michigan; asleep, that is, to everything except the call of money. There was no community life there. The only centers were the post office and the drug stores. The young people didn’t know the old people and considered them “old-foggyish” and “old-fashioned.” The old people shook their heads over the young people, and said, “In our days

they didn’t do so.” Here was a barren field in which to sow the seeds of a pioneer festival; so she went back to her pupils. “Do you know how this town was settled?” she asked of them. They looked at her in surprise and not one could answer. “Do you know anything about the Indians who lived here before the white men came?” “Indians?” And the little “witching” boy in the front seat looked up. “Were there Indians here in this town?”

“Well, suppose we find out,” answered the teacher.

“Sure, but where can we find out?”

“Where do you think?”

“Will it have to be from books?” asked another boy fretfully.

“No, I think not,” and the teacher smiled.

“Humph, I’ll ask my grandad; I bet he’ll know,” volunteered the first little boy.

“Then, to-morrow, in our history class, we’ll talk about the Indians who lived here and the first white men who settled in this place and who built up our town,” was the history lesson assigned by the teacher.

That night around the fireplaces and at supper tables questions hurried thick and fast from the young to the old. The mother of the “witching” boy, unable to answer these questions and unable to stop them, said to her son, “Go ask Aunt Hetty who lives on the comer; I think she has lived in the town since the time it began.”

“Oh, no, I’m afraid of Aunt Hetty she’s too old.”

“All the more reason that she can tell you, my dear.”

The little boy thought a while. He did want to know about those Indians. He went outdoors and looked wistfully across at the little cabin where Aunt Hetty lived. It was old and weather-beaten and looked as if it might have seen war councils itself. But no one knew Aunt Hetty very well. She lived here with her dog and cat. She had no children; she seemed to have few friends. She was the last of her time. The little boy walked slowly over to the corner, leaned across the fence, and looked longingly at the door. Suddenly another boy from the same school turned the corner. “Say,” and the “witching” youth beckoned his friend, “do you think she could tell us about the Indians?” And he nodded his head toward the forbidding house. After a consultation they stalked bravely in. It was a half hour before they came out again and they had had a good time, one knew by their faces.

“Gee, ain’t she great!”

The next morning there was an expectant stir in the school. Whispers of Aunt Hetty and Indians floated around the cloakroom. They were ready to recite on their history the minute the clock struck the period. There was only one difficulty; both of the boys wanted to talk at once. When this was

arranged it all came out. Why, John Robins and his wife had brought an Indian with them when they came down the small river in a boat. The Indian had come with them all the way just to make peace with the other Indians so that they wouldn’t have their scalps taken. And it was a good thing, too, because there were a lot of Indians hiding behind the trees and they didn’t know whether to kill the white man or to smoke the pipe of peace with him. But they made a fire on the bank, John Robins and the Indian right over there on that bank where the old mill stood. You can nearly see the place from here; and they cooked their supper and then the Indians came out from behind the trees and made friends with them. Aunt Hetty told them all about it.

It is easy to see how enthusiasm of this sort would be contagious. Aunt Hetty was quite a different personage now to these children. They even thought that they could persuade her to come to the school and tell them about it. And they did. She put on her old bonnet in honor of the occasion. It hadn’t been out of her trunk for a good many years, for a shawl had served to protect both head and shoulders. But if these children wanted to know something about former times, the dignity of the past had been retained, and she put on her bonnet and went up to the school. So one link in the broken chain between the old and the young was forged. There resulted a period of the renaissance of the old folks. Grandfathers were rescued from forgotten corners, and grandmothers told their stories and true ones at the twilight hour, and in the school, too, for that became the meeting place for the Past and the Present. A contagion of this sort is soon carried from the school into the home. It spread rather rapidly from there into the church society and into the lodge. Pioneer programmes became quite the fashion of the day and the children, from these programmes, gained some added material. But to them, after all, remained the glory. They weren’t going to give a “programme,” they announced, in a superior way. They were going to give a festival!

So one autumn day the people of the town gathered on the bank of the little river, and you may be sure all the grandfathers and grandmothers were there. It was quite like the days of the old sewing bee and singing school. They found they had so much to talk about. They weren’t “dead” yet, they weren’t even “shelved,” although they had thought they were. They sat dawn near the place where John Robins had landed. Now the town was across the river, for it had been moved a little later. It looked very beautiful seen through the tinted foliage of the trees and the bushes. The clocks struck and a hush fell over the group. Down the river they saw a tiny boat coming. In one end stood an Indian as if guiding it. “John Robins,” they

whispered among themselves and they moved a little to make way for the boat to land. The Indian looked from shore to shore and as he selected his landing place and stopped the boat a man and a woman followed him on to the shore. Then Indians could be seen behind the trees, watching and making signs. John Robins and his wife followed the Indian guide up the bank and helped him gather some wood to start a fire. As they sat around it, the Indians, after a hasty council, came forward with signs of peace and joined them around the fire. From the motions and gestures the audience knew that the pioneers were asking the Indians about the country, and soon they picked up their goods and followed the lead of the Indians around the bend of the river and out of sight.

The people on the bank didn’t wait to be told to follow. Aunt Hetty led the way, and by moving a very little distance they could see the land around the bend. On it was a long log house that the children themselves, helped a very little by their fathers, had erected. And even as they looked, another boat appeared around the bend of the river. This was an old-fashioned rowboat and in it were three white men with their families, Reverend William Prey, Mr. Hanson White, and their friend (neither Aunt Hetty nor any local historian knew that friend’s name). Out of the log house John Robins and his family hurried to greet the new pioneers, and when they had landed they fell on their knees and led by their new minister, were seen to offer prayer in reverent silence. Then, singing “A Safe Stronghold Our God is Still,” they entered the old cabin to hold their first religious service. So was the first church founded.

In the third scene a larger boat than either of the others came down the river and landed on the opposite bank. The earlier settlers then moved across the river to live with the newcomers. They were joined by a band of Indians who seemed to feel also the meaning of this occasion, signifying it in their own way. The chief carried a long pole, and was followed by an Indian with a tom-tom. The chief held the pole in an upright position and the Indians danced around it to the music of the tom-tom and to the approval of the white people who saw in this ceremony, peace and shelter for their new abode. The last scene united that time with the present and, because of this festival, was filled with meaning. Out of a little dwelling on the bank came the school teacher ringing a small hand bell, and the children running from their homes, entered the school with more alacrity and more joy, one fancied, than had been the case in many a year.

Obviously, this festival differed from the Deerfield Pageant in many details, particularly in its simplicity. And yet its results were far spreading. They were: new enthusiasm in the school, new bond between teacher and

children, and between grandparents and grandchildren. History took on a new meaning, and in the very place where John Robins had landed, the children brought up their boat and with their Indian guide started the fires of a new place. There is something very impressive when we live again the events, sing the songs or speak the speech that years before were enacted in that very spot by those who had gone before.

Modern education is returning to the old methods used by the priests the methods of the Morality and Miracle plays. St. Francis of Assisi, that holy man of the thirteenth century, saw that if religion was to be made democratic it must be presented vividly to the people. Only so would it gain a hold on their affections. With faith and reverence he built the little manger of Bethlehem in his church that the people might see with their own eyes the events of that night when the Wise Men, guided by the star, found the child in the stable. All democratic movements. In order to be forces, must be vivid.

The mind best perceives things that are pictured. This was very evident after the festival in that little Michigan town. All history became more plastic. The children could see Its possibilities and how it could be made real. School meant more. This is not an attempt to make the festival a panacea for all municipal and educational ills; but, sometimes, a very simple thing that we perceive and do ourselves may change our attitude of mind and our vision in many things.

The Pioneer Festival may prove that there is fellowship and understanding for us among our parents. The same songs are chanted in our churches; the same prayers for courage and endurance are offered from our pulpits; there is the same play of the sun upon the waters and the hills; and as of old the Prophets lead forth the little children in whom is their hope. There is little tradition in America. We have had no jongleurs, no minnesingers, to sit under the greenwood tree and tell us stories and legends of our town or of our country-green. We have been too busy hewing out the stone to build our dwellings and thinking out systems whereby we can get more efficiency out of human machines. Then, too, we have been a migrating people and we couldn’t halt every generation to find out or set up a few traditions. A man who was born and lived and married and died in the same town is a sort of American miracle a reversal of American nature. No, we will go to Europe for our traditions, we think, and there visit the castles and cathedrals that were potent forces in civilization. Yes, when we get through making our money, we will find out something about traditions in Europe. But we must have traditions here, or rather we must preserve those that we have. John Robins was a compelling figure in this little town

which he founded, and I fancy that he, and what the people have made him stand for, will be more dominating as the years go by. For tradition is a flower, the buds of which we sometimes crush but whose fragrance is our inspiration.

The Pioneer Festival in helping to establish both national and local traditions is planting the seed of this flower. For these traditions, like those of old, must be transmitted not from museum to museum, but from individual to individual and so live where our nation lives, in the hearts of the people.

PART 2

The Spirit of the Festa

The pageant preceding the festival was about to start, after an impatient and ill-tempered wait; for Peace who stood majestically at the head did not rule over her subjects.

Queen Elizabeth was in a bad temper. Her ruff hurt her neck, and Sir Walter had lost his coat. After a “snappish” dialogue between him and the “manager,” the queen agreed that it made no difference for she was tired of the whole thing and would be glad when it was over. She had notions of her own how Queen Elizabeth would have conducted herself and what she would have said on such an occasion. But the manager had ignored them, as well as her, merely giving her a printed slip with her instructions and her “part” written thereon. Hence her rage.

The Roman soldiers complained that their armor was too heavy and they couldn’t walk. Shakespeare looked as if he would gladly “fall on the other side.”

Beau Nash had forgotten his rules of conduct.

But what could be expected from a “manager” who came from no one knew where and was going, no one knew whither. He had spent several days in their neighborhood had gone away had returned in a few weeks with the historical pageant and festival, depicting the history of this part of England, in his hands had assigned parts and had applied only his ideas, allowing the people to be nothing but “dumb show,” and demanding of them, enthusiasm. Many of them desired “not to be,” but because conscience did make cowards of them all, here they were for the purpose of lending glory to their city and country, which, thanks to the manager, they now almost hated.

Just as the pageant was ordered to advance, a halt was called. Frantically the manager rushed up and down. Appius Claudius was missing. Messengers were sent in every direction. One, leaping around the Pageant House, nearly fell over a disheveled figure impatiently searching in the grass for some lost object. His costume was torn, his face was muddy, his sword was broken, and he seemed most forlorn.

“Are you Appius Claudius?” desperately demanded the messenger.

“No,” groaned the figure, “un’appy as ’ell.”

The man who was not Appius Claudius but un’appy as ’ell expressed not only the feelings of the people in the pageant but the spirit of it as well. It is easy to see that the benefits of such a festival would be very minor either to spectators or to participants. For, following the old time principle that “joy begets joy,” the chief benefit and the greatest joy must be ever with those who take part, and must radiate from them to the spectators.

The term, pageant, was originally used in England to designate those movable platforms that served as a stage for the play. From that it came to be applied to the play itself. A pageant, in the sense in which it is commonly used, since its present day revival, is either the representation of a series of scenes or episodes, usually connected with the particular locality in which the performance takes place: or it is a spectacular and ceremonial procession, typifying some period or event, or series of events.

The word, festival, comes from the Latin, festum; festal days being opposed to ferrial days or week days which are not fast days or feast days. In France we have the fete, in Italy the festa and in Germany the fest.

There is in existence a programme of the Greek Isthmian Festival given in 582 B.C., which included horse races, games, and musical compositions. It is a very ancient custom dating from mythological times to celebrate the funeral of a chieftain or a hero with a feast and games and ceremonies. Savage tribes, too, have their festivals, expressed in sports and dancing. By festival, then, we mean those occasions, the expression of which is a folk expression, whether in music or drama or dancing or games. In Bayreuth is held regularly a Wagner Festival. A keen national feeling centers around these operas which Wagner has evolved out of the old folk tales, the expression of old folk beliefs and worship and poetry and beauty. At Oberammergau is a folk drama, a religious festival. The story of the Passion presented in a folk play acted by the Oberammergau villagers is their most reverent expression of their inherent religion.

Before drama, however, before musical composition, was dancing or rhythm. This was usually the first group expression. Sometimes it manifested merely joy in motion; sometimes it indicated the drama of everyday existence, hunting, fishing, loving, hating and killing; sometimes it expressed their religion, their reverence to the sun or to the earth, or to their gods. This very easily grew into drama as can be readily perceived. And so the elements of a festival are simply those folk elements of a dance or rhythm, of song, games, and folk plays. And it is so essentially a folk expression, an expression of the people, of all the people, that the spectators themselves, paradoxically, become participants.

Of course it is very easy to combine pageantry with the festival and very effective, most festivals including in them some pageantry; but they are after all essentially different, one being ceremonious and spectacular, the other simple and joyful; one being specific, the other generic; one being of the Court, and the other of the People.

The revival of the historical pageant probably dates from 1905 when Mr. Louis N. Parker gave and managed the Sherborne Pageant in Dorset. This was followed by brilliant ones at Warwick, at St. Albans, at Oxford, and other places noted for their historical interest. They seem to have divided themselves naturally into two kinds. First are those which were or grew to be the expression of a very strong local interest and feeling for the history of the place and its people. In these the people themselves, directed by a Master of the Pageant, study the history, the characters, the costumes, the music and dancing, and the games. They have frequently read about them or heard about them but now they have to be them, to make them, or do them. The Miller, Boots, the Squire, the Dame, the Charwoman, all have parts in the pageant and make it a real community joy. The other type has been probably the more brilliant, and at the same time, if we may use the term, the more tawdry. In this, professional actors come in to act the parts; professional musicians compose and direct the music; professional costumers design the costumes. The audiences are mostly from London and the whole brilliant sumptuous performance has an outside, an artificial interest like itself.

I think it must have been the reflection of these last that prompted the magazine article in 1910 which suggested to American cities interested in giving pageants that they pay a manager several thousand dollars to come into the city, study the history of the region, write the book, assign the parts, direct the actors and manage the pageant. No wonder they were “un’appy as ’ell!”

Compare, if you will, the revival of the festival in a Normal school in Michigan. It was quite different from this, some might say so different as not to be comparable. Of that the reader may judge for himself. The pupils in the Department of Expression were making more insistent that trenchant question, “What’s in a name?” They were failing to express either themselves or anyone else. They were bored, completely bored. Those in the course in “Masterpieces” had a fellow feeling for the girl from the rural department who entered the course late. The second day she was there she flopped herself down in her seat, chewing her gum violently as If to increase her dynamic manners, looked quizzically up at the Instructor and inquired: “Say, who’s the author of Masterpieces, anyway?”

It was a sad, it was a desperate state of affairs. How could these pupils be wakened? Their bodies even seemed dead, their minds surely were, and as to their souls well, one’s Inquiry stopped at the first two. “How would you like to give a festival?” It came like a bomb from the desk. But it didn’t seem to strike. They looked a little surprised, a little puzzled. Finally one, who had reached that state of learning where he wasn’t ashamed to admit that there was at least one thing which he didn’t know, said, “Don’t know what it is.”

Surely they knew some festal days? Oh, yes, of course, there was Christmas, and one or two thought maybe Thanksgiving might be included. There was only one who suggested May Day. It didn’t appeal greatly to the others. They said that they couldn’t remember that they had ever had much fun on May Day. One girl said she used to make flower baskets, when the flowers came out early, and hang them on the door knobs on the eve of May Day, but she didn’t think it was much fun.

“Didn’t you ever have a May-pole?” they were asked. One or two of them admitted that they had wound a May-pole, but there was little enthusiasm about doing it again; it was’ nothing but practice and the teacher had scolded them if they didn’t hold the ribbons tight enough and if they forgot to count. “But what did it all mean; why did they wind the May-pole; and why did they hang baskets on the doors, and why was the first of May called May Day?” They hadn’t thought of that. A little spark of interest gleamed for a moment and they even thought they’d like to look it up. The next recitation they assured the instructor that May Day was celebrated way back by the ancient Greeks and by the Romans and by the English oh, yes, very generally by the English. It wasn’t always celebrated on the first of May but it was celebrated when the Spring came. Being questioned some of them guessed why and a few of them knew why. Because they were somewhat tired of Winter themselves they felt quite keenly how glad they would be to have Spring return. And if it wasn’t altogether a matter of sustenance, if they didn’t believe that by offerings and sacrifices and festivities they had to appease their gods in order that they might have food, they did feel that they could dance and shout and laugh if only Spring were here. Yes, they were waking up. “Then do you think we could give a festival?” If by festival was meant to do some of the old May Day games and things that used to be done then, why, yes, they thought they’d like to give a festival. It was a bare rock on which to grow May flowers but the seed had been planted and it only remained to see whether the flowers would bloom. The instructor thought there was only one way to do it. She must get away from anything that would make it seem arduous. It must be all joy and fun

and play. Therefore, it must be very informal. She did away with most of the class formalities. They sat around the room in a circle and talked as if they were at a kaffee-klatsch, and the teacher let them do it, reserving only the right for each person, when he talked, to be heard. She frankly said she herself knew very little about it; that they would all have to work together. She made suggestions of course, but she left the manner of working them out to the class. Three classes in the department decided that they wanted to give a May festival. One class voted, after a discussion, to give a Greek May Festival; another to give an Old English May Day, and another to take any material that they liked from any source whatever and just have a joyful May Day.

Method of Procedure

The method of procedure was about the same in all classes, with very interesting variations of individualism. But a description of the Greek one will practically tell the story. This class had found some accounts of old Greek Festivals. In these there were games, music, and dancing, and in some there was a pantomimic play. From this they concluded that those were the elements that they wanted in their Greek Festival. Perhaps it was within the province of the Instructor alone to suggest that in order to give anything Greek they must know something about the Greek people. This seemed logical to them and they spent a few days finding out some of the domestic customs of the ancient Greeks. In this, the “Home Life of Ancient Greeks,” by Blümner, translated by Zimmern, helped them. Inasmuch as on May Day the Greeks offered thanks to their gods for the return of Spring, one suggested that they look up some Greek mythology. They had but little time to do all this, for three weeks and a half from the time they decided to give the festival they were to present it in the grove of the school. So after a few recitations on the customs and stories of the Greeks they were asked how they were going to plan for their festival. They had decided what were the elements they wanted in it games, music, dancing, and a pantomimic play. Now what was the best way to get these? Some one suggested that they be divided into groups. So the instructor divided the class into committees, one for the music, one for the games, one for costuming, one for the dance, and one for the story. The last half of that hour she gave over to the committees, each chairman meeting her group and deciding what they would first do. They were to report to the class two days after. “Of course you know we have no money to spend on this. You will have to take that into consideration.” This didn’t discourage them at all to the instructor’s

surprise. She hadn’t quite realized how much enthusiasm they had gained. Next morning the committee on games brought in a list of games which the Greek maidens had played (there were no boys in this class). Most of the games the class knew but they did not know that they were Greek. They had rather accepted their American origin without any question. Who could imagine the ancient Greeks playing Tag, for instance, or Blindman’s Buff. “Well, let’s play some of these games and see which we like best.” So they pushed the chairs back, gathered in a circle, and played Blindman’s Buff. When the one blindfolded called to the pursued it was decided that to keep the atmosphere some mythological names should be used. Any one stepping into the room might have blinked to hear a pursuer calling, “Where are you, Ariadne?” and the answer, “Here I am, Theseus,” or “Where are you, Narcissus?” and, “Here I am, Echo.” Then the chairman of the committee told them to sit around in a circle for a game of ball for this was a favorite pastime of the Grecian maidens. It seemed very simple but wasn’t consisting in keeping the ball going rhythmically and gracefully. They played several games and out of these they decided, by vote, to use Tag, the game of Ball, and Blindman’s Buff. When they went out of the room their cheeks were red, their eyes sparkling, and their bodies much more alive than they had been for many a day.

The committee on music had difficulties. In the first place they said that the old Greek scale was not like ours. In the second place they couldn’t find any songs. They found some music, in Rowbotham’s “History of Music,” but no words. This difficulty they solved in a few days. With a good deal of search they found an Ode to May, which by some adaptation could be made to lit the music. The music was put on the board and the words also, and the chairman of the committee drilled the class in singing this delicate and beautiful tribute to the Spring. They were delighted to find that they could use this in a procession through the woods to the natural stage where they were going to present the festival. But Grecian maidens did not walk as we do. They made their progress in a much more graceful, rhythmical step than our efficient trot. So the committee on music literally put the class through its paces.

Costuming was not very difficult, that is, as concerned the style of the robes, but would cost money. The flowing garments could be made out of cheesecloth, and the bands around the hair out of gold paper. They felt that they must have these costumes, so with one accord they voted to give the money themselves as it came only to a few cents apiece. The cheesecloth was bought and the class one day adjourned to the sewing room, where the committee showed them their patterns and helped them to cut their gowns.

There was little work done on these outside, for the instructor wanted this to be a part of regular school work.

The invitation to the dance was a little slow in coming. The committee could find no directions for Greek dances but they didn’t want to give it up. So they thought that they would make up some, keeping the spirit of the people as best they could. Inasmuch as the committee on the pantomime had decided that the story of Ceres and Proserpine was to be the subject of the play, they concluded that they needed a dance to bring on the Greek maidens who pick flowers with Proserpine in that vale where Spring reigns perpetually. So they originated a dance, working out the expression from the inside rather than putting it on like adhesive plasters as in the usual “ballroom” dancing. It was a slow, stately, graceful dance in which the arms and the body expressed the joy of Spring as much as the feet. Perhaps some of Botticelli’s pictures, that hung on the wall of the room, with their eternal spring, helped them to conceive this dance. They thought, too, that the flowers, after they had been revived, at the return of Proserpine, would show their joy in the dance. It spoke rather well for the expression of their ideas that this dance was light and fairylike in contrast with the dignity and ceremony of the Grecian maidens.

The committee on the “play” asked every member of the class to write out a dramatization of the story of Ceres and Proserpine, as that seemed to signify the return of Spring to the earth after she had been stolen away and hidden for six months. They wished to play it in pantomime, as any attempt to put it, or at least all of it, into language, they felt, would destroy its beauty. From the dramatizations handed in, they made a composite, taking the best from each one and so getting a play, literally by the class. Perhaps no other one thing emphasized to them their needs as much as this one requirement. In one dramatization the student had been very literal in her adaptation. Her stage directions read, “There is a great rumble and the earth shakes when Pluto carries off Proserpine in his chariot.” The instructor saved this out of the others that had been handed to her to look over, and read it to the class. Inasmuch as they were to give the festival in the grove of the school, she inquired, rather pertinently, if they were going to use dynamite to make Normal Hill shake. “And you have no money, you know. Now where are you going to get that wonderful chariot of Pluto’s and where will the horses come from, and where, oh, where, will you get some one to make them whirl in godlike speed over the ascents and descents of Normal Hill?”

It was a good illustration. They had been told, and they, in their turn, had repeated it, namely, that they must keep in mind four things: the people who were to give the festival; the people who were to see it; the place where

they were to give it; and the materials with which they were to work. The people on the dance committee knew that they had to give their dance outdoors, and that there were twenty people to give two dances. The pupils on the music committee, in adapting their music, realized that they had no bass or tenors. The people who were choosing the games had to discard all races (girls are neither very beautiful nor very effective in races), and they could produce no chariots for races as in the old-time festivities. But it took the dramatization to bring out clearly how very much and how very carefully the place and the people and the materials had to be considered. Normal Hill would not shake, and Grecian chariots were not given away with speeding horses to members of a festival committee that had no money to create them.

To digress for a moment to the class that was working on the Old English May Day. They, too, were doing a dramatization, for no Old English May Day would be complete without Robin Hood and his merrie band of men under the greenwood tree. Every member of the class handed in a dramatic version of some Robin Hood story or ballad. Curiously enough there were several made of the story of Robin Hood and the Butcher. Perhaps you remember how Robin Hood, on adventure bent, met a butcher on the highway one bright morning, and after dickering with him came into possession of his clothes and his cart filled with meat which he was taking to the market in the town. From the high-road the scene changes to the market place in the city. In one dramatization the scene was carefully described as, “a market place with booths all around and all kinds of meat displayed on the tables; and deer and other animals hanging from hooks.” There were at least two other scenes in the story with consequent change of properties. The instructor read this to the class and asked what were the difficulties. One by one they came out. But for some it seemed to take the concerted thought of the whole class to make them apparent. In the first place, as there was no curtain, a change of scene unless that change demanded little or no change of properties was not feasible. They could see that, especially when they were asked if they would be willing to carry the meat in and out. They came to think, too, that it might give the audience a chance to laugh, and no audience would miss that! “The same old question,” the instructor said. “Pray tell me where are you going to get these booths? How are you going to carry them on to the hill so that the audience can see them, and then take them out so that the next scene can take place in a palace that is not a meat market, undisguised. And where will you get your men who will come in dragging their meat behind them?”

A recitation of this sort is, with all its incongruities, very profitable.

None of those pupils ever made that mistake again. They had to find this out for themselves by doing it themselves, not as an exercise to put on paper, but as a play to be acted by the members of the class, on Normal Hill, before an audience of the students and their friends. In that lesson they learned more about dramatic structure, although that was not their assigned lesson, than they would learn in many a day of mere study, without the presentation of dramas. When the spectators saw “The Marriage of Allan a Dale” presented in two simple scenes, they could not have guessed through what complexities its simplicity had come.

But to return to the Greek festival. Thinking of their audience (they had come to the point where that element really entered into their calculations), they felt that the pantomime would be better understood if some member of the class would first tell the story. It was a pretty idea, too, that among the flowers might be Narcissus and Anemone and Hyacinth and that somewhere in the play they might tell very briefly their stories. Now they had everything selected that is the dances, the song, the games, and the play. They thought that they were ready to begin rehearsals of the complete festival. “All right,” agreed the instructor, for those dramatizations had been a lesson to her, too. What was the use of wasting time and energy, telling them how to do a thing, or what to do, or what not to do, when they must find out for themselves by doing it. They started and then stopped. “What comes first?” “I don’t know,” answered the instructor. “But but ” they came back a few steps into the room. “Well, we can’t go and give it until we decide.” They addressed their teacher almost with scorn. “Oh, very well, perhaps it would be better to decide first.”

Every one agreed that they ought to enter with the processional step, singing the chant. Then they thought that they should follow with the games, and after the games have the story told, and then the play would naturally follow. “Very well, now let’s do that much.” So they went out on to the hill. It was a beautiful setting for a festival; the hill descending into a natural stage in the center, with a background and “wings” of wooded hill land. The maidens started back in the woods and out of sight, so that the music sounded like old forgotten melodies far away. When they came into view with that swaying step that they had practiced so often in their class, the effect was charming. But when they got to the stage, they stopped, all in a huddle, and when the song had come to an end, there they stood, very uncomfortable and very ridiculous. They knew that they wanted to play the games next but they didn’t know how to start. To their discomfort, they were left huddling there quite long enough for them to realize that there was something still to be done. They had to find a way to get from the chant

to the games, and looking ahead, they saw, too, that they would have to find a way to get from the games to the story. When they had felt this very keenly in confusion the lesson for the next day was assigned. Each one was to make out a programme showing each step of the festival and how the transitions were to be made from the song to the games; from the games to the story; and so on through the festival. The next day these programmes were read aloud in class and discussed in a truly practical way. Then they were given to a committee to work over and to make out of them a final programme; and the class went on with its work. The Greek girls went into the gymnasium to practice their dance and the flower girls told their stories and discussed their entrance.

The following programme, as it was put on the board the next day, showed that much time and thought had been expended on it, and it seemed a satisfactory solution to difficulties that at times had appeared almost insurmountable.

“The Greek maidens, dressed in flowing Greek garments, with yellow bands around their hair, enter from the woods in their processional, singing the Greek Ode. When they come on to the natural stage, they form in a semicircle. After the song is finished, they join hands and circle around, once to the left, and once to the right, coming back to their starting places. Then they drop to the ground, to play the games. One girl, who has the ball, throws it and the one who catches it, throws it to another, and so on until the ball has been caught five times. The fifth one who catches it changes the play to Blindman’s Buff by choosing some one and blindfolding her (separate sterilized handkerchiefs being used for each person). The third person caught changes the game into Tag and this game takes every one off the stage except the one who is to tell the story of Ceres and Proserpine. After she has finished, the music for the Greek dance starts and the maidens come in from every direction through the trees. As they exit, dancing over the hills and away, from the opposite direction comes Ceres, singing, ‘Where are my roses, and where are my violets, and where is my beautiful parsley, too.’ Then the flower girls, with wreaths of flowers on their heads, come running in, answering, ‘Here are your roses, and here are your violets, and here is your beautiful parsley, too.’ Ceres sits on a log that is near the audience and the Flowers group themselves on the hillside. Then Ceres notices Anemone, and says, ‘There is little Anemone whence do you come, my pretty flower?’ or some such question. And Anemone tells his story. After that Ceres questions Narcissus and Hyacinth, each of whom tells his story in turn. As Hyacinth begins, Proserpine comes in with the Grecian maidens and circles in and out among the Flowers, picking the buds

from the wreaths on their heads. She wanders away to the right, and then suddenly when no one is looking, Pluto in a black costume rushes in, encloses Proserpine in his robe, and carries her like a whirlwind down the hill and out of sight. The Flowers begin to droop, the heads slowly dropping, until they have withered and fallen. Ceres, looking to see what is the cause of this, finds that Proserpine has vanished. In consternation, she and the Greek maidens rush in all directions looking for her. Finally they all disappear, and Ceres enters on the other side of the hill, to indicate that she has been wandering far. She shows by her actions that she is in great grief as she sits down again on the log, weeping over the drooping Flowers. Then a fairy or a wood-nymph enters and tells by her gestures that Proserpine is coming. Ceres rises to embrace her as she runs in. After greeting her mother, Proserpine touches each Flower in turn, and as they are touched, they slowly begin to revive. Then they join in the flower dance, running over the crest of the hill, as it is finished.”

This programme was copied by the members of the class. Then they spent several mornings going through it on the hill. Many times their attention had to be called to the audience element. They mustn’t forget that when they had anything to say it must be heard, or that, being out of doors, they mustn’t group themselves into too small a space, but must think of their picture.

The preparation for this covered about three weeks and a half of time. While a longer time in practice might have given a more finished performance, there was no time for enthusiasm to slip away or for spontaneity to die. Every day there was something new, and every day there was more joy. And when the day to present it came the instructor rallied them around her and told them that while she hoped and believed that the spectators would have a good time, her first thought was of them. She wanted them to have the best kind of a time and to keep that thought in mind rather than to think of how the audience was liking it; for it was their own festival, and in proportion to their fun would the audience enjoy it. Throughout this festival, and those given the same day by the other two classes, joy was very evident. And “wherever joy is, creation has been, and the richer the creation the deeper the joy.”

May Day Festival Given by Seventh Grade Pupils

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, a class of thirty-five seventh grade pupils, ranging from twelve years to sixteen years of age, gave a May festival, “not to afford pleasure to grown-ups,” as their teacher Mary E. Kline said, “but

to give joy to the participants and to the one hundred little folks from the kindergarten and first grades who composed the audience.” (The element of the audience was taken into consideration from the first.)

Here in America we know little or nothing of the traditions that surround May Day, but in them we repeat the experiences of the race and of civilization. The return of Spring is a wonder to us to-day as it was to the first man and woman or to the Greeks and the Norse, and if we do not explain it in the same way we do feel its poetry and mysticism. But when the pupils in this class were asked to write what they knew about May Day, they wrote their experiences in the school, seeming to have no other connection for it.

There was one problem ever before the teacher: many of her pupils were foreigners, hearing another language than English spoken in their homes, and they were also at that very trying age of self-consciousness. Their English, consequently, was bad, very bad. What made it more difficult was that they were not reticent in saying that they didn’t like “language” and “composition.” Could a May festival be made a sugar-coated pill, the teacher wondered. She tried it. The work had to be done in the language, reading, and music periods. This class, also, was divided into committees. The songs chosen were “Lovely May,” “Merry May,” “’Tis Spring,” and “Some Folks Like to Cry.” The first three were selected from an English collection brought by one of the pupils; the last was taught to them by a little Scotch lassie in the room. “London Bridge,” “Boughs in May,” and “Go Round and Round the Village,” were the games chosen. The Sleeping Beauty was the story that they decided to play, each one writing a version of each act and handing it to the committee appointed to look them over and to make the final adaptation. The Queen wore the wedding dress of the Scotch lassie’s mother; and the Princess wore her sister’s white graduating gown and her aunt’s bronze wedding slippers “because they were so quaint.” The good fairies dressed in white and carried gilded wands which one of their number had made. The evil fairy carried a cane and was arrayed in a bonnet and military cape which another child had borrowed for the occasion. The nurse wore the cap and apron belonging to her cookingschool uniform. Doing up her hair and wearing an old dark dress of her mother’s transformed another little maid into an old woman. The King’s guard borrowed window sticks to carry when they marched, because it gave them a military air.

“For the forest needed in the second and third act,” the teacher explained, “a parent allowed some branches to be cut from trees on his property. These, the boys tied into bundles, six or seven feet high. Boys

standing behind them held them in place for the forest and opened a passage for the prince at the proper time.” So was that omnipresent difficulty in all schools no money overcome by this seventh grade class. The dance around the May-pole was the only part of the programme that required time out of school hours, and the reason for this was that the piano in the hall had to be used. One of the best results of this work was the good comradeship produced by the planning and the working out of the festival.

The teacher found that there was such a different spirit in this play than she had been able to get in any of the scenes that she had tried to give in the past, where the children had learned their lines written by some one else. One very practical benefit, too, came from the interest of the Principal of the school. He came into the hall to see the festival, because he said that he was so much interested in their naturalness and in the enjoyment that they were getting out of it; and he was surprised, too, in the way that the boys took hold of It.

Merry Mount May-Pole

The May-pole was quite general throughout England. It is said that the last May-pole erected in London was one hundred feet in height and was on the spot where the Church in the Strand now stands. It was taken down in 1717-18, and ultimately served as a support for a large telescope belonging to Sir Isaac Newton. Of course during the time of the Puritans all festivities were under a ban, but they were resumed after the Restoration. When the Pilgrims came to this country they celebrated no festival days. But perhaps the most significant May-pole in American history was the May-pole of Merry Mount, erected on May 1, 1627, almost flaunting its garlands over the Pilgrim settlement. Thomas Morton was a soldier of fortune and the men who landed with him on the Massachusetts coast were revelers and Lords of Misrule. They were going to let no chance go by to have their fun and the first of May being a festive day they celebrated it with sunshine and jollity. It wasn’t altogether a dignified celebration, but it was a spirited one. “In their train,” says Hawthorne, “were minstrels, not unknown in London streets; wandering players, whose theaters had been the halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers, and mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs; in a word, mirthmakers of every sort such as abounded in that age.”

With songs, noise of drums and the discharge of firearms, they went into the virgin forest and selected a pine tree eighty feet in height. This they

chopped down and dragged to the summit of Mount Wollaston, or Merry Mount, where they wreathed it with garlands and made it gay with ribbons, and near to the top nailed the spreading antlers, of a buck. The original poem that they read in Its honor, if not a pretty one, was a rollicking one, and the dancing, encircling, and singing round the pole made an unaccustomed splash of color in the sun and the silence of that bleak coast. Nothing could be more vivid or explain better the spirit of that day than Hawthorne’s description of the group in “The May-pole of Merry Mount.”

“But what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the Maypole? It could not be, that the fauns and nymphs, when driven from their classic groves and homes of ancient fable, had sought refuge, as all the persecuted did, in the fresh woods of the West. These were Gothic monsters, though perhaps of Grecian ancestry. On the shoulders of a comely youth uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag; a second, human in all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk and limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of a venerable he-goat. There was the likeness of a bear erect, brute in all but his hindlegs, which were adorned with pink silk stockings. And here again, almost as wondrous, stood a real bear of the dark forest, lending each of his fore-paws to the grasp of a human hand, and as ready for the dance as any in that circle. His inferior nature rose half-way, to meet his companions as they stooped. Other faces wore the similitude of man or woman, but distorted or extravagant, with red noses pendulous before their mouths, which seemed of awful depth, and stretched from ear to ear in an eternal fit of laughter. Here might be seen the Salvage Man, well-known in heraldry, hairy as a baboon, and girdled with green leaves. By his side, a nobler figure, but still a counterfeit, appeared an Indian hunter, with feathery crest and wampum belt. Many of this strange company wore fool’s caps and had little bells appended to their garments, tinkling with a silvery sound, responsive to the inaudible music of their gleesome spirits. Some youths and maidens were of sober garb, yet well maintained their places in the irregular throng, by the expression of wild revelry upon their features. Such were the colonists of Merry Mount, as they stood in the broad smile of sunset, round their venerated May-pole.”

It was a significant and dramatic episode. Near it, on bleak Plymouth Rock were the Pilgrims, cutting out their homes in the naked woods, with the bitter waves dashing on the rocks and the savages lurking in the forests and all around them, loneliness and interminable shadow. Here was little color and no festivity. Indeed, on Christmas Day, in 1621, thirty-five immigrants who had come to help the Pilgrims in their home-making, refused to

work. They said that they had conscientious scruples against it. A holiday meant something to them. Inextricably bound up with Christmas were memories of their home and the games and the revels with which they were accustomed to celebrate this holiday. The Governor, not wishing to interfere with religious scruples, left them at home and with his men went to the usual work, but when he returned, instead of finding them quietly observing their Christmas Day, he came upon them in the street at play, pitching bars, playing ball, and such like sports. Seeing no religious observance in this, with glowering brow and thunderous speech he ordered them into the houses and so killed festivity in its first bud.

The grim and sober and rugged Pilgrims could not understand the life on Merry Mount, in which so much color and joy reigned. To them the May-pole of Merry Mount was like a laugh in the mysterious face of Life, so with irons in their hands and sobriety in their heads and grimness in their hearts they marched to Merry Mount and chopped down this pole with all its trappings, and sobriety and shadow again reigned supreme over festivity and the sun.

What opportunity the school has here to work out a festival, combining the festal spirit of those merrymakers with the rugged spirit of our Pilgrim forefathers. Here is philosophy of life, both personal and communal; here is history and religion and art. And here is a dramatic incident as a vehicle for all a significant episode in our national life.

Some Traditions of May Day

The celebration of May Day itself is probably descended to us from the old Roman Floralia, a festival of great gayety in honor of Flora, the Roman goddess of Springtime and Flowers. After 173 B.C., it was celebrated annually and extended from April 28 to May 3, for on the date of April 28 the temple of Flora, near the Circus Maximus was founded. Perhaps it has not been more generally celebrated in modern times than in England, English poetry abounding with reference to it. In Chaucer’s Court of Love we read that on May Day “forth goeth all the court, both most and least, to fetch the flowers fresh.”

There have been several May Days noted in history, probably the most famous being in the time of King Henry VIII. The King and Catherine of Aragon, his queen, one beautiful May morning, when the hedgerows were in bloom with hawthorne, went out into the high ground of Kent, to gather the May. On Shorter’s Hill they met the heads of the Corporation of London, together with the officers of the guard, dressed in Lincoln green.

The Captain who headed them was in the character of that famous outlaw Robin Hood, dear to the hearts of all English folk. In his character he invited the King and the Queen to see the manner in which he and his men lived. The King, giving his gracious consent, followed Robin Hood and his merry men to a glade under the hill, adorned with May flowers and covering two thrones. Here they were served in the ancient manner, with venison and wine, and entertained with archery and May-games.

Robin Hood must have been a favorite with Henry VIII, for there is a tale that in the first year of his reign the King, in the character of the outlaw, played a prank upon the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting. He and twelve of his noblemen appareled themselves in short coats of Kentish kendal with hoods and hosen of the same; each of them carried a bow and arrow and a sword and a buckler like the famous outlaws whom they impersonated. Rushing into the room where the Queen and her ladles were sitting, as may be imagined, they created something of a stir in this well-ordered apartment with their dances and their antics.

There are several traditional groups belonging to the May Day, the most famous being the Milk Maids, the Chimney Sweeps, and Robin Hood and his companions. Through the streets of London, straggling even into the last part of the nineteenth century, might be seen small bands of chimney sweeps in fantastic dresses decorated with gilt paper, with shovels and brushes in their hands. With each group was usually one grotesquely attired female (a man in disguise) glittering with spangles and bedecked with ribbons. But most of the attention was centered on a curious figure called Jack-in-the-green. In a tall frame of herbs and flowers, with a flag at’ the top, was concealed a man. When the chimney sweeps would stop in their wanderings and dance to the music of the drum and fife, or to the rattle of the shovels and brushes in their hands, this figure would join in with its wooden antics, and when the “cap” was passed it was perhaps he who gathered in most of the money.

In another street at the same time, perchance, or even near by in the same street, might be seen a group of milk maids carrying their pails ornamented with ribbons and flowers. They were usually dressed in light and sometimes fantastic garbs and their heads were wreathed with flowers. Sometimes they would lead along a milch cow which they had decorated in flowers and leaves, and stopping, they would dance around this animal to the music of the violin or clarionet. At an earlier time, instead of a cow, there was a man somewhat similar to Jack-in-the-green, for he was encased in a frame which covered the whole half of his person. On this frame were hung clusters of silver flagons and tankards (which had been rented at a

high price), each set in a bed of flowers. While the dance of the milk maids contained some beauty, the delight of the spectators was in the dance of the “frame” (the legs only of the person in it showing). This added a clumsy feature to the dance which gave the same kind of delight to the crowds as a clown in a circus. There have been few groups of festal figures that have not had the jester, the fool, or the down.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a distinct set of sports known as the May-games, whose origin cannot be traced. It was customary for citizens of all estates to go out into the woods after the midnight preceding the May Day to cut down the May-pole, adorn it with branches and flowers, and bring it in to the city where they danced around it and performed other pastimes all day long. Toward evening they had their stage plays and bonfires in the streets. The stage plays were usually founded on the Robin Hood ballads which were very popular. Indeed, so popular that Bishop Latimer, in his sermons printed in 1589, tells the following story:

“Coming to a certain town on a holiday to preach, I found the church door fast locked. I taryed there half an houre and more, and at last the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me and sayes, Syr, this is a busy day with us, we cannot hear you; it is Robin Hoode’s Day; the parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood; I pray you let (hinder) them not. I was fayne, therefore, to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet would have been regarded; but it would not serve, it was faine to give place to Robin Hood’s men.”

In the May-games Robin Hood presided as Lord of the May, and a man dressed as Maid Marian, his mistress, was Lady of the May. His companions were those famous in his ballads who always accompanied him on his adventures. There were tests of archery and Morris-dances. In the Morrisdance, which was considered an essential feature of May Day, the Hobbyhorse or a Dragon made a part of the dance with Robin Hood and his companions. Their garments were adorned with bells, not only for ornament, but also for the music. In Brand’s Observations on Popular Antiquities there is a description of the costumes of Robin Hood and some of his companions, and in Chamber’s Book of Days is an excerpt from the novel Queen Hoo Hall by Mr, Strutt, which describes some of the contests as well as many of the traditional costumes.

The Hobbyhorse was a great favorite. He was a compound figure having a near resemblance to the head and tail of a horse, fastened to a light wooden frame to serve for the body. This was put over the head of a person and covered with trappings which extended to the ground, so concealing the feet of the person and helping imagination to see the horse that curveted

and trotted and cantered and jumped around as no horse in any field or on any track ever performed.

There are some pretty May customs that come to us from the Isle of Man and from Germany. One class working on the May Day festival brought their revels to a climax in an old allegorical play called “Strife Between Winter and Summer.” The oldest report to be found about this play is dated 1442, although there are traces of it in a manuscript of earlier date, and its theme can be found in the works of Hans Sachs, the wonderful old shoemaker meistersinger. The hosts of Summer, heralded by the song of the Cuckoo, came running in singing a song of Spring. The hooting of the owl and a mournful song ushered in Winter and his followers. They were dressed in straw and cotton, simulating snow, and carried wooden swords, and Winter himself had on a crown of straw and a mantle of snow. In contrast Summer was dressed in green with a crown of foliage on her head, and those who followed in her ranks were garlanded with vines and carried grain and grass. Then the strife began. Spring asking Winter to leave and Winter refusing. Pleas being in vain they resorted to battle. Spring and her maidens pelted Winter and his hosts with flowers and nosegays, Winter retaliating with swords and snowballs. Of course Winter was defeated, his mantle of snow was captured, and Spring and her maidens, dancing and singing around it, buried it under their flowers.

(In The Elementary School Teacher, volume 8, page 413, there is a description of this as it was given in a school, including the music for the play.) With these as suggestions there are many variations permitting of much creative ability for May Day observances. For instance, there is a description in book XIX, Chapter I, of Le Morte D’ Arthur, of how Queen Guenevere “called unto her Knights of the Round Table; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride on Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster.” With this as a foundation there might be worked up a very brilliant festival including characters and ceremonies of the Table Round. In Chaucer’s Court of Love or in his Knight’s Tale the creative student will find suggestions for a Chaucerian May Day. There are opportunities here to give a simple festival or a very brilliant festival founded on traditional sports and festivities so linked with the civilization and the literature and the growth of the people that they are rich in possibilities and promises.

The Harvest Festival

“Wherever throughout the earth, there is such a thing as a formal

harvest, there also appears an inclination to mark it with a festive celebration.”

On account of the social and political conditions of the Turkish Empire in the past it may be imagined that there have been few festivals there. Social laws demanded a separation of the men and women, and political government feared a gathering together of even a small group. But I am assured by a native, that in the villages, when the harvest was brought in, there was always at least a bonfire and a dance around its light.

Among the words which Moses said God spoke, are these: “Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto Me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread…. And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field.”

Among ancient Israelites the Feast of Pentecost was the second of these three pilgrimage festivals. At this feast they offered thanksgiving for the grain harvest which was celebrated at the conclusion of the Passover.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the last of the pilgrim festivals and was the thanksgiving for the fruit harvest. Four hundred and twenty-four priests were in attendance to accept the sacrifices by day and to start the illuminations by night. After the lighting of the candles there were dancing and processions. For, according to the law of God, spoken by Moses: “Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: On the first day shall be a Sabbath and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days…. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths.”

Therefore, in the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles “booths were erected in the open air with branches from the palm and willow, within which families were gathered. The occasion was sacred to the reunion of friends and to the enjoyment of hospitality. It was unlawful for a Jew so much as to taste an ear of parched corn or bread of the new harvest till a nation had borne a sheaf of barley or wheat to wave it before God in token of gratitude.”

One cannot read this divine ordinance, or the history in the Old Testament with its famines and its feasts, its prayers for food, and its sacrifices that plenty might come again, and its. feasts of gratitude for favor restored, without feeling the significance of a harvest festival. Is there not an opportunity here for a great religious and reverent festival? There is that eternal

beauty of the Idyll of Ruth with its lyric love, a story of the harvest time, of Ruth amid the alien corn. There are the time-honored figures of Abraham and Isaac and Joseph, and surrounding them, the pastoral life — the famines, the struggles, the harvest, and the mountains and the roses in the wilderness. Could we touch this with all reverence, what an illuminating and soul-stirring folk festival we might have.

So the Jews had their festival, in honor of their God. The Romans and the Greeks had their festivals in honor of their gods. The Japanese and the Chinese have their harvest festival day at the close of the year. Indians — in fact all savage tribes — as well as all people in mythological times, celebrated the ingathering of the harvest with thankfulness as they had celebrated the sowing of the seed with hope. On November 1 the Romans held a feast in honor of the goddess of fruits and seeds. It was at this feast that the stores which had been laid up for use in the winter time were opened. On November 1 or thereabouts was also the great harvest festival to the sun which the Druids celebrated as their thanksgiving or harvest festival, with their bonfires and ceremonies in honor of their god.

In later times, in England, the name of the autumn festival was HarvestHome. In Scotland it was called the Kern. And in the North of England its name was the Mell-Supper. In all of these festivals the servants and the master and mistress mingle together; the word “mell,” in fact, coming from the French, meler, meaning to mingle together. In this way the master and mistress showed their thanks to the servants for help in bringing about a bountiful harvest. On the evening of Harvest-Home there was usually a large feast in the barn, presided over by the master and his wife, to which all the servants came. In some places the reapers would bring the grain in a cart on this last day of harvest and on the top of it they would put a figure made of a sheaf and dressed with gay ribbons. It was supposed to be a representation of Ceres. In Scotland this figure was dressed like a doll. A pipe and a tabor were played in front of the cart and the reapers circled around singing. This was popularly known as “The Hock-Cart.”

Hallowe’en

Hallowe’en or All Hallow Even cannot be unconnected with harvest time, being a mixture of Christian customs, mythology, and Druidism. As early as the fourth century All Saints’ Day or Hallowmas appears in the calendar of the Eastern Church. Its date is November 1 and the evening before it, October 31, has been contracted in name to Hallowe’en. Some of the ceremonies of the Druids, those priests of the ancient Gauls and

Britains, seem to prevail in the celebration, for a fire forms one of the rites of this day. Perhaps this fire points to the ancient custom of kindling sacred fires at certain seasons of the year, the summer and winter solstices. (The Germans have their Osterfeuer and their Johannisfeuer, and the Druids had their Bealtine and Samhtheine.) At both these seasons it was thought that the fairies and elves and witches were powerful and so there grew up a great fund of superstitions relating particularly to the future whereby through certain signs and symbols on this night one might foretell certain events of the forthcoming year.

There was a very interesting celebration of Hallowe’en at Balmoral Castle in 1874. In honor of it, the farmers and their families came from miles around. Just as darkness .fell her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the Princess Beatrice, each bearing a torch, drove out in an open phaeton. The servants of the estate, holding huge lighted torches, formed into a procession behind them, following their Queen and leader around the grounds and the castle. The lights of the torches, throwing shadows in the corners of the massive castle, shining on the River Dee, and dancing in and out among the leaves of the trees on the wooded slopes, suggested that the elves and the fairies and perchance the witches, too, were joining in the procession. In front of the castle they stopped before an immense bonfire. Just as the flames were lighted, a figure dressed as a hobgoblin appeared on the scene. As the people drew back, screaming and laughing, they saw that he drew a cart and in it was a witch no, the effigy of a witch. The cart was surrounded by fairies carrying long spears. When it came to the fire they all gathered around it. Then the presiding elf took the witch in his arms, held it for a minute so that the crowd might shiver in expectation, and with a cry tossed it into the fire, where it, and its evil genius, it is hoped, were hastily consumed. When nothing but little dancing flames and fiery tongues remained of it, the people joined in reels and danced to the strajn of the piper in this weird and pretty observance.

There is such an opportunity at Hallowe’en time to join the pretty fairies and lovely sprites with the sly elves and wicked witches in some weird and mystic festival that it is a pity that in the United States the celebration partakes largely of a rowdy character.

Thanksgiving

“Out of small beginnings great things have been produced as one small candle may light a thousand.” Governor Bradford.

In a letter to a friend, dated December 11, 1621, Edward Winslow,

thrice Governor of the colony of Plymouth, wrote the following: “We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn and sowed some sixty acres of barley and peas; and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings or rather shads, which we have in great abundance and take with great ease at our doors.

“Our corn did prove well; and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn…. Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.

“They four in one day killed as many fowl as, with a little help besides, served the company almost a week, at which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men whom for three days we entertained or feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our Governor and on the captain and on the others.”

This excerpt is significant and interesting as being the account of the first Thanksgiving festival held in this country. At first it was merely an occasional festival offered in thanks for some special prosperity or help. In January, 1795, George Washington proclaimed a national Thanksgiving celebration. After that it was fitfully celebrated except in New England until after the Civil War. Since 1863 it has been an annual festival, the President issuing a proclamation each year to that effect.

It is our one national religious festival that is for all the people without regard to religious belief. It is a pity, therefore, that this unity of feeling should not find a mutual expression in some fitting celebration rather than being sacrificed to sports that have no meaning of the day itself.

The schools, which are in a way fitted to introduce the festival with all its attendant feelings and meanings, will find in Thanksgiving an effective subject, for it is descended from the old harvest festivals, whether we go back to the Feast of the Tabernacles or stop at the Harvest-Home in England or linger around the camp fires of the Indians. Features of each or all could be used with a picture of that first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims and the Indians, the gentle Priscilla and the hardy Miles Standish, the “First Settlers” with their industries and their prayers and their songs would well fit into this frame. Around it is a wealth of suggestion that will appeal to the child in the school and to the parents in the church.

The Thanksgiving Festival of the Training School of the Western State Normal School in Michigan, given November 28, 1911, was very comprehensive in linking together some of these different types of traditions that

hover around Thanksgiving. They opened the festival with a song of joy by the whole school, “Thanksgiving is here, Heigh-o,” which struck the festal note immediately. To the Rural School Department and to the Kindergarten it was given to show pictures in pantomime of the Thanksgiving of Today on The Farm and in The Home. The eighth grade changed the setting and the time from America of To-day to England of Yesterday, and gave some of the old customs of Harvest-Home, bringing the last sheaf, dressed as Ceres in the Hock-Cart. Again the harvest note was struck in the original song “Harvest” sung by the fifth and seventh grades. The Hallowe’en note vibrated but for a moment in a violin solo, “Snake Dance.” Some of the harvest customs of the Indians were presented by the fourth grade in the Indian dance and feast at which the Pipe of Peace was smoked. The song, “The Lord is My Shepherd” linked the savage religion with the Christian religion and led naturally to our earliest historical Thanksgiving, the Feast of Tabernacles, presented by the third and sixth grades. This scene was divided into two parts, the Sabbath processional and the Weekday festivities. In the first, the children, led by the High Priest, marched through the audience, chanting an old reciprocal chant. In the second, appeared the market place with the booths in which were weavers weaving their rugs and women selling pots and other articles. Between the booths, on each side of the stage, came a picturesque processional of shepherds traveling, in accordance with divine ordinance, to the Feast, and after these had passed, Miriam and her maidens, dressed in white and scarlet and yellow, danced a dance of Thanksgiving. The festival very fittingly closed with the doxology by the school and the guests. This festival was so very simple that it could be carried out by almost any school, and there is so much material surrounding the autumn festival that the variations possible are almost infinite. It is easy to see how full of meaning this festival might be made, leaving in the mind and in the heart of every person its impress of religion the religion of thanksgiving, whether it be expressed to the One God by the Jews or to the Trinity by the Christians, or to the sun by the Druids and savages, or to the gods of the Greeks and Norse and Romans, or to the spirits of the air and earth. It is an expression of the inherent trust and hope of all people that life which has been given must and will be sustained, and that creation and fertility, by the grace of some Supreme Power or powers will reign upon the earth.

PART 3 Festal Heritage

“Go to the circus? Of course we’ll go — every man, woman and child. Don’t I remember my childhood? The very name ‘circus’ makes me feel desperate, and right now I can see paper hoops dancing before my eyes, and, jumping through them, clowns and wonderful diaphanous figures. I smell the pink lemonade, and I taste the burned peanuts. Why, I’m worse than any child, and always have been ever since that first circus.”

We were eating supper in an abbreviated hotel in a little town of about five hundred, in Michigan. The meat was tough, the potatoes greasy, but we had driven five miles from the nearest village and we needed sustenance for the evening before us — for the Commissioner was to talk to the Farmers’ Institute about the “Superior Advantages of Rural Boys over the City Boys,” and I — well I — was to waste the time of these hard-headed, hardhanded, but not hard-hearted, farmer folk with fairy tales!

The Chairman had just come to the Commissioner to announce drearily, but with an undercurrent of excitement, that there was to be a circus the next afternoon, and should they have the Institute or go to the circus?

The Commissioner had made short work of that query. As he chuckled over his “first circus,” I ventured to inquire about it.

“Well, you see,” he answered, “I lived on a farm and my father seemed to have little interest outside of that farm. I had three brothers and one sister, but he paid attention to us only as we paid attention to the farm. We lived about eight miles from town, and one Saturday when we went in to get our supplies we saw by the flaming billboards that a circus was coming. Well, from that time all life and living centered in that circus, and how we could get to it. We talked about running away — but we knew we’d be caught. We appealed to my father — but it was of no use. After many secret conferences with no results, my sister suggested that we ask our mother to intercede. We ran in to her and we begged and we entreated so hard that mother finally promised to do her best. Next morning father told us that if we got the rest of the potatoes dug, we could go. How we worked, and watched the sun as it climbed higher and higher and our hearts sank lower and lower, for we thought we’d never make it. But finally the potatoes were

all dug. We rushed back to the house to find that it was half-past one! Despair loomed large, I can tell you, but we determined to try just the same. We went without lunch, pulled on our ‘best’ clothes, and I rushed out to harness up. I hurried so with the harness that it broke, being old, and despair loomed larger than ever, but at last we all got started. We drove up before those wonderful flapping tents to see the people coming out! And they wouldn’t even let us in to see the animals!”

“How mean!” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” and the Commissioner’s twinkly eyes got grave, “I’ve had some disappointments in my life, but not one as keen as that.” Then he chuckled again. “I got even though nearly.

“Next morning, Bobby he’s my brother rushed up to my room, and shook me. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘the circus is coming!’ When I got downstairs, sure enough, way down the road, they were coming. Had to go right by our house on the way to the next town. Then I thought hard. I ran in the house and down cellar, and got a basket of apples. Bobby was close on my heels you may be sure, asking me what I was going to do. ‘Hurry up,’ I said, ‘help me carry this out.’ We put it down by the side of the road, and watched the elephants coming nearer and nearer. They were almost to us. Our hearts began to beat faster and faster. Would it work? There was just one hope. But then then the first elephant stopped, swung his trunk from side to side, and walked right over to my basket, which I carelessly then dumped into the road so as to attract the second elephant. Then their feast began. Well, you see, the road was narrow and the two elephants occupied the whole of it, and so the rest of the circus had to stop, and no prodding or swearing budged those elephants. So there was the whole circus right in front of our house until the last core of the last apple was swallowed by the last elephant.”

The joy and bliss of the circus! It belongs by right to every child, and to the child in every grown-up this circus with its flapping tents and steam calliope, its wonderful prancing horses and still more wonderful princesslike riders, its chariot races and human skeletons, its fat women and swordeating men, and all the other fairylike wonders of the earth all, all, in this one circus. And, oh, the smell of the circus! The peanuts, the red lemonade, the tan bark, the orange skins that the little girl left from her lunch! How it intoxicates us, makes us forget our troubles, and see again with the eyes of childhood. Yes, that is its basic appeal. That is why it has lived. In it we see, actually see the fairies and the heroes of our fairy tales and the wonders of our Arabian Nights made real to us. It is the only place that they are not of shadow rather than of substance. But here we can laugh with

them, and we can watch them breathlessly as they accomplish those wonderful feats that never were on sea or land. Anything that does this for us is a tradition worthy to be handed down from century to century as has been the circus.

For in Ancient Rome the circus had its origin. The word, “circus,” is from the Latin meaning a ring, and in Rome the circus, like the Greek Stadium, was a building for the purpose of horse and chariot races and games and athletic sports. This building had tiers of seats forming a crescent around one of the ends; the other end was straight and contained the stalls for the chariots and horses. The Circus Maximus, in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills, was the oldest building of this kind in Rome. The Circisian games, tradition says, originated in the time of Romulus when they were dedicated to Consus or Neptune and called Consualia. After the first war of Tarquin the younger, his victory was celebrated with games. A space around the altar of Consus was marked off where the senators were allowed to erect seats for themselves. As the games continued to be held annually, this space finally grew into the Circus Maximus which held about 250,000 people. Cassar enlarged it and made a canal between the lowest tier of seats and the course, so as to protect the people from the wild beasts in the games. When these fighting expositions of wild beasts were removed to the amphitheater Nero filled up the canal. The circus was adapted principally for chariot races, that climax of all circuses, whether modern or ancient. The horses and the chariots and the riders made a brilliant spectacle. As in our circus, there was usually a procession heralding the races themselves in which images of the gods and of the imperial family deified were drawn about in highly decorated cars by horses, mules or elephants. This was attended by the colleges of priests and led by the presiding majesty in the dress of a trumpeter. Next in importance to the Circus Maximus was the Circus Flaminius which was erected in 221 B.C. Nero made the Circus Neronis famous, of course, with his pleasures; and there were several other circuses of note erected at various times. In them, beside the horse racing were athletic sports, such as wrestling and boxing, and sometimes there was represented a regular battle and during the time of the canal, a sea fight even was introduced.

Nowadays, although the modern tent circus is but the shadow of what once was great, its delights are not the less pure, and one must bemoan the fact that the Hippodrome in the larger cities is more or less taking its place. So one other tradition that belongs to the child, and to the child in the man, is being sacrificed to the artificiality of the city. For the Hippodrome lacks most of the old traditions. It caters to those who have lost the key to

the box of romance and hence are bored with life; for them the oldfashioned circus has no thrill.

It was not so with our forefathers in New England. In the year 1810 there went through New England the first circus! It was a traveling show of about seven or eight people, mostly Italians; and was quite unlike either the old Roman circus of other days or the Barnum Circus of to-day, for it did not fold its tents in the middle of the night. It remained a week or two in a town and its “tent” was built out of boards. The performances had to take place in the afternoon because there was no way of lighting the tent at night. The manager, keen to advertising always, invited the young men who were locally noted for their horsemanship to share in the opening act; and local musicians furnished most of the music. Of course, the Puritan-minded denounced the performance, but the others went to it, and after the music, breathlessly watched the seven or eight horsemen as they thrillingly rode into the ring and performed hitherto unknown feats of horsemanship. And there, too, was the tumbler who leaped over six horses and the fat woman who kept throwing off garment after garment as she rode until she became a cavalier all spangles and ribbons and lace.

Next to the horses, the clown is the greatest delight. In the time of Augustus Caesar there grew up in Italy a form of entertainment called “pantomimus,” which was a sort of offshoot from the Ancient Roman tragedy and was confined to dancing and songs and gesticulating. These performances demonstrated that there was no necessity for speech in order to convey our thoughts; in fact their method of communication sometimes went more directly to the heart of a simple peasant than when it was interfered with by speech. When the Roman glory decayed, in its debris was carried these little shows and not until about the fifteenth century was anything of the sort revived there. Then Harlequin, that charming vagabond of pantomime, appeared as the principal figure. On his head he wore a cocked hat and in his hand he wielded a bat, whether fiercely or not his eyes hidden behind a black mask did not reveal. As the pantomime grew other characters entered In. There had to be a lover and a loved one, and in stepped pretty Columbine. After her trailed her father Pantaloon, so called perhaps because of his baggy trousers, and with him, in all his antics, tumbled our old friend, the clown. Then, as now, he was always getting people into trouble, and the play was a series of episodes in which Harlequin was continually protecting Columbine against Pantaloon and the clown.

Pantomime

Pantomime is a confused term because it has been used in different

senses according to the age, as it was called in Ancient Rome, “pantomimus,” and in England was sometimes designated as “dumb-show.” The modern pantomime, particularly as used in connection with the English stage, usually means a dramatic entertainment in which the action is carried on with the help of spectacle and music and dancing, and in which the characters are conventional characters originally derived from Italian masked comedy.

Even to-day at Christmas time the children of London have their greatest delight in the Christmas pantomime. There has probably been no break in this enjoyment from the time of John Rich who was an inimitable Harlequin with his “frolic gestures.” In his play, introduced into England between 1700 and 1723, Harlequin appeared as the lover of Columbine and her father opposed the match, whereupon Harlequin with the help of the many ludricrous antics of the clown carried her off. Thackeray in his Sketches and Travels in London tells about “A Night’s Pleasure” at the Pantomime. He says that the overture of the Christmas pantomime which that night was, “Harlequin and the Fairy of the Spangled Pocket-handkerchief; or the Prince of the Enchanted Nose,” is always for older people a “pleasant moment of reflection and enjoyment…. Perhaps it is because you meet so many old friends in these compositions consorting together in the queerest manner and occasioning numberless pleasant surprises. Hark! there goes ‘Old Dan Tucker’ wandering into the ‘Groves of Blarney’; our friends the ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’ march rapidly down ‘Wapping Old Stairs,’ from which the ‘Figlia del Reggimento’ comes bounding briskly, when she is met, embraced, and carried off by ‘Billy Taylor,’ that brisk young fellow.”

To-day the overture is of as great importance, and if we do not meet the old friends of Thackeray we do meet our own old friends. No wonder then that the children of to-day lean forward in their seats when the curtain rises and greet their old friends by name. “Cin-der-el-la,” they say, or, “Peter, Pe-ter,” or, “Wen-dy,” and gasp and clap their hands in delight to see them again; and as for the older, as Thackeray says, “you may be happy, perchance; a glimpse of the old days may come back to you. Lives there the man with soul so dead, the being ever so blase and travel-worn, who does not feel some shock and thrill still; just at that moment when the bell (the dear and familiar bell of your youth) begins to tinkle, and the curtain to rise and the large shoes and ankles, the flesh-colored leggings, the crumpled knees, the gorgeous robes and masks finally, of the actors ranged on the stage to shout the opening chorus?”

To-day it may not be “Harlequin and the Fairy of the Spangled Pockethandkerchief; or the Prince of the Enchanted Nose,” but it may be “The

Sleeping Beauty,” or, “Jack-and-the-Bean-Stalk,” or “Cinderella,” or, “Peter Pan,” or any of the other friends so dear to childhood that in all the more foolish years afterwards one never meets their like or their equal. No Christmas pantomime, it is sad to state, brings the same joy to American children in the midst of their rush and tear for giving and getting presents. And yet there might be played such a simple pantomime that even the children in one house could bring again within our doors the rule of the fairy with her magic wand and the enchanted company.

From the time of this play of Harlequin the clown has belonged to the world and there have been many famous ones. Curiously enough in real life they were usually sad. It is told of one that he made all London laugh but he could not laugh himself. Fearing melancholia, he sought a doctor whose prescription was, “Go to the circus; the clown will make you laugh.” To which, with touching sadness, he replied, “I am the clown.” In The Lament of a Pure Mind, E. V. Lucas says: “I met our local circus clown once (Bimbo was his unforgettable name), in his own everyday clothes and for a moment it was as though the light had died out of the world.” So real are the clowns to us!

In The Living Age in 1910 appeared an article called, “The Passing of Pierrot.” It is a lament over the passing of an immortal vagabond down the highways of history. “He is,” says the author, “as it were, the cuckoo among immortals. He follows upon the tidal wave of imagination, wrecking old convictions, persuading us it is Spring again and where he has laid waste acres of stale thought, fresh, new and surprising flowers spring up and bloom. He stands for the laugh with a tear hidden in it.” No one knew where Pierrot came from with his white face and his hair under a close tight cap, in his great coat with big buttons and large, flapping pantaloons, but he is probably an Imitation of Pulcinella who made his appearance about 1600 in Naples. Pierrot was adapted to the audiences of France where he frequented their fairs, and was Impersonated by artists of “real talent,” and so he has conformed to the French character and has become a type purely and absolutely French. He was the principal character in a comedy, “L’Empereur dans la Lune,” and so is the conventional figure for the Man in the Moon. To the maiden whom he woos is given the name Pierrette. His companions are a vagabond lot. They are not, “all as white as they are painted,” but they teach us that many things which don’t exist come true. “Nothing is as good as it looks.” “No,” says Pierrot, “It’s better.” There are sunlight and moonlight on the earth, and lovers and coquettes and vagabonds, and tears and laughter in the forest, and primroses and violets in the meadows. Could the Man in the Moon break through the hedges of our

garden with his vagabond company he would leave, I fancy, a new light on the bushes and a different color in the flowers.

Nowhere in modern literature, I think, is the spirit of Pierrot better manifested than in that charming play, “Prunella,” by Laurence Housman and H. Granville Barker. Pierrot creeps through the bottom of the hedge surrounding the garden where Prunella — afterwards Pierrette — lives, hemmed in by her aunts. Prim, Prude, and Privacy. Half-way through he stops. “Cuckoo!” he calls and Prunella fascinated, approaches him. I quote from the play:

PRUNELLA. (Approaching Mm, half fascinated.) Tell me — what in the world are you?

PIERROT. (Going on his knees in a mock attitude of prayers and talking very fast, as if in a great hurry to tell his tale and get pardon for intruding.) Oh, I’m nothing; I’m nothing in the world but a poor Pierrot. I’m an orphan, I haven’t got a home, I haven’t got a friend, I haven’t got a leg to stand on, I haven’t got a bed to sleep in, I haven’t had a bite to eat, and I haven’t had a drop to drink for three whole hours. (Changing his manner, seeing that he has made an impression on her.) There, now you know all about me — as much as I know myself, almost. Oh, I’m so giddy, I can’t stand. If you don’t look sweet at me I shall be dead in a minute.

PRUNELLA. But how did you come here? Who are you?

PIERROT. Dropped like a bird. I’m the man in the moon.

PRUNELLA. Don’t be silly. There’s no man in the moon. I’ve been taught that.

PIERROT. Ah! Don’t you believe all the things you are told!

PRUNELLA. But that’s in a book.

PIERROT. Never read books. I never do.

PRUNELLA. Don’t you learn things?

PIERROT. I know all that’s worth knowing. And now I’ll tell you something. (Draws nearer and looks into her eyes while he points to himself.) The moon has a round face, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. That’s science. You thought I didn’t exist; but — I’ve come true. That often happens.

Then in troops his mixed lot: Scaramel, Hawk, Kennel, Callow, Mouth, Doll, Romp, Tawdry, and Coquette, who help him to transform Prunella, the Dutch maiden, into Pierrette. He calls to her in her window, “Come down, Pierrette,” and Prunella opens her window.

PRUNELLA. Who is there? Who are you?

PIERROT. The man in the moon.

PIERROT. Pierrette, it is already time for us to say good-by.

PRUNELLA. Where are you going now?

PIERROT. To my playground, the world: where the gardens have no hedges and the roses no thorns, and where all birds fly free. Pierrette, Pierrette, come out of your cage! Come down!

PRUNELLA. I I must! For a moment for a moment only!

PIERROT. Life’s but a moment.

No wonder that Prunella could not say farewell, but could only answer, “I am Pierrette!” while Love “draws his bow and strikes a triumphant note.”

In the ancient city of Acena near Naples, also in 1600 originated, it is said, the Punch-and-Judy show. The Tattler of May 15th, 1709, tells of the rivalry between Robert Powel’s Puppet-shows and the play of “Alexander the Great” that was to be acted by a company of strollers. The figures in the Punch puppet-shows were managed, usually, by unseen performers hidden below the stage but so fixed that they could thrust their fingers within the dresses of the puppets and move their heads and arms. The Tattler says, “the Puppet Drummer, Adam and Eve, and several others who lived before the flood, passed through the streets on horseback, to invite us all to the pastime and the representation of such things as we all knew to be true; and Mr. Mayor was so wise as to prefer these innocent people, the Puppets, who, he said, were to represent Christians before the wicked players, who were to shew Alexander a heathen philosopher.” So at ten in the morning all the beauty and wit of Bath were there to see this puppet-show which was built up on the old Mystery and Miracle plays, giving scenes of the Creation and of the first centuries of the world. Their popularity was probably due somewhat to modern incongruities that slipped in. Thus, when Noah’s Flood came. Punch and his wife, as Noah and his wife, were Introduced dancing in the ark!

Puppets were found in the tombs of Ancient Egypt and. in the tombs of Etruria. In China and India they are at the present time made to act in dramas either as movable figures or as shadows behind a curtain. The Shadow Theater is over two thousand years old; for it flourished in India at the time of Christ, and in the eleventh century was very popular in Eastern Asia as it is to-day in China and Japan, Siam and Java. The figures in these plays were made of flat colored leather and the light was made to shine through them with the effect of stained glass. In Munich there has been a revival of the shadow play and its first performance was a piece that Goethe had written for puppets. Indeed, many famous writers have given their

works to puppet plays; among them Le Sage and Maeterlinck, and other French and German authors of high distinction.

But of all the puppets, the marionettes are probably the most beloved. Theophile Gautier suggests that in primitive times people first adored the tree, perhaps as a symbol of their god; then this symbol grew into a statue; then it was made more like life by having clothes; and to carry the realism of their gods further the clever workmen gave these figures movement. Xenophon speaks of marionettes. In fact the Grecian actors wearing huge masks were really nothing but large marionettes; but the marionettes as we know them to-day were originally little images of the Virgin, jointed puppets, worked by hidden actors in miniature theaters. The word in this sense first occurs in 1584. They were introduced from Italy into France at the time of Charles I and from there to England. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson, Pope and others allude to them in their writings. And it is interesting to know that the first idea of “Faust” came from a piece in a marionette theater. These performances are not for little ones alone as the size of the actors might indicate. Indeed, Anatole France says that he loves marionettes; they have naive grace and a divine gaucherie. The marionettes of M. Signoret were perhaps the most perfected ones in the world and their plays included dramas of Cervantes and Aristophanes as well as those of Shakespeare, Moliere and others. And one French monsieur assured me that in the marionette theaters, the theaters of classical plays, the French children are educated!

In a little hall in New York which one enters through a narrow passage between tenement houses, there is a small stage at one end, and before it on the level floor are rows of crude benches and chairs. In the evening the Italian people of the neighborhood leisurely stroll in and listen to the music which plays until there are enough people to see the show. Perhaps it is the Paladins of France although this is only one of the seven cycles of a Sicilian epic of the eleventh century which chronicles the deeds of Charlemagne and his army and is founded on the “Song of Roland.” One chapter of this epic is played each night and the play itself lasts from two to five years. In the caste are three hundred glorious figures; kings, queens, popes, angels, devils, giants, lions, tigers, horses. Usually each night the climax of the play is a battle and frequently in it the hero or enemy is killed, bringing tears to the eyes of many in the audience, for it may be they have known him and seen him for fifty-five nights and now he will appear no more. It is the loss of a friend.

Perchance the announcement at the beginning of the evening may be: “Now friends, we’ll have a terrible battle between the Christians and Pagans

on the walls of Rome.” For all these things are of daily, not desultory, interest to these Italians. It is a piece out of the Middle Ages. What a shame that the “Song of Roland” at the Marionette Theater should be replaced by the Cherry Sisters and a moving picture show; for these marionettes, dear to the hearts of artists and poets, of kings and queens, of muffin-men and apple-women, are a real and sacred heritage.

Minstrelsy

The Middle Ages were the Golden Ages of minstrelsy although minstrels were obscurely known from the sixth century. Bishop Percy says, “Minstrels were an order of men in the Middle Ages who united the arts of poetry and music, and sang to the harp of their own composing, who appear to have accompanied their songs with mimicry and action, and who have practiced such various means of diverting as were much admired in those rude times and supplied the want of more refined entertainments.” And, what color and song and poetry and history and beauty the minnesingers, the meistersingers, the troubadours and the jongleurs have preserved to us! Minstrelsy, no doubt, originated in the songs of the Teutonic Gleemen, those chanters of heroic days, and in the entertainment of the Roman Empire. The minstrels form a varied lot. At one side are high tumblers and dancers and gross performances and at the other courtly musicians and singers and delicate entertainments. Standing at some well-known crossroad one might meet a vagabond, clothed in a grotesque habit so as to attract a crowd with his tricks. And what tricks they were; for according to one of the craft a jongleur “must know how to compose and rhyme well and how to propose a jeu parti. He must be able to play on the tambourines and cymbols, to throw and catch little balls on the point of a knife; to imitate the song of birds; to play tricks with the baskets; to exhibit attacks of castles and leap through four hoops; to play on the citole and the mandore; to handle the clavichord and the guitar; to string the wheel with seventeen chords; to play on the harp; and to adapt the gigue.” These magicians sometimes traveled alone, sometimes in company, sometimes on horseback, but always they were of the gay of the earth. The troubadours, the mediaeval poets of Southern France, who flourished from the beginning of the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth century were of the court, and were composers and sometimes singers of war and of love. I fancy that they too were wizards.

“They say a wizard to a Northern King, At Christmas time such wond’rous things did bring,

That through one window men beheld the Spring, And through another saw the Summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While all unheeded, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day.”

So did these figures of minstrelsy bring Spring into the hearts of men. In Germany these lyric poets, also noble, were called minnesingers. Of the artisan’s class were the meistersingers who came later and formed guilds to revive the national minstrelsy of the minnesingers. Their subjects were chiefly moral or religious. Hans Sachs, the meistersinger cobbler, will always be associated with them as will also Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. To these picturesque and typical romantic figures of the Middle Ages we are indebted for much romance and chivalry as well as for most of our mediaeval literature which they helped to preserve for us until printing was invented.

These same Middle Ages hold in their annals nothing more foolish or wise than the jesters and fools who lived by their wit or by their weaknesses. Although this class reached a recognized place and function in the social life during this time they probably had existed at all times and in all countries. Indeed, the Athenians had their public fools whom they called “flies” because they were free to enter into any banquet without invitation! During the reign of the Tudors and Stuarts in England, the jester was an important character not only in the court of the king but in the court of any nobleman. Although the terms, “fool” and “jester,” are used more or less interchangeably, the court fool was either a natural fool, or a witty and artificial fool; while the jester whose name was derived from the old word, “gest,” meaning a romance or story, was an actor and a minstrel as well as a “fool.” The dress of the regular court fool was more or less conventional. The head was shaved, the coat was motley, the breeches were tight, and the legs differed in color. Some garment, looking like a monk’s cowl, covered the head and frequently had asses’ ears, while on the top was a coxcomb. The fool’s bauble was a short staff on the top of which was a ridiculous head. Shakespeare has made the fools famous in his plays, and some of the jesters of the court were writers of no mean talent themselves. They were probably the only class who at that time dared to tell the truth. Some superstition decreed that deformity in fools or jesters was potent and therefore their ugliness was considered beauty. The wider the mouth, the longer the nose, the deeper the eyes, the bigger the hump, the more perfect was the fool.

The fashion has changed; the fools and the jesters belong to the court no more, for Muckle John, the fool of Charles I, was the last official fool of

England; but “motley” still reigns, for a laugh is better than a tear, joy is better than sorrow, and the wisdom of fools is often greater than that of wise men.

The Mummers

Among later traditional groups in England that have brought down to us their gifts are the Mummers and the Robin Hood Group. (The latter were described in the May-games.) The Mummers, or in Scotland, the Guisers or Guizards, as they are called, are still to be found at certain seasons in parts of England and Scotland. The word “mummer” is derived from the Danish, mumme, or from the Dutch, momme, and is synonymous with masker. Their chief performance from time immemorial has been a play whose plot contained the battle between St. George and the Dragon. They are the merriest sort of revelers, disguised in masks the most grotesque that can be imagined and selected according to the characters. The music which they sing is of no tune and every tune. At Christmas time or on New Year’s Day or on the first Monday in the year, these revelers would go about from house to house to the accompaniment of their dire music, and with “tragical mirth,” arriving at the door, would claim the privilege of Christmas in the admission of St. George and his Merrymen. First would enter Old Father Christmas, perhaps dressed in a fur cap, fur gloves, long red coat, top boots, wig and beard of long white hair, with nose reddened; or else a grotesque mask put over the whole face. Then the play began.

Here come I, Old Father Christmas, Christmas or not, I hope Old Father Christmas Will never be forgot. A room make room here, gallant boys, And give us room to rhyme, We’re come to shew activity

Upon a Christmas time. Acting youth or acting age, The like was never acted on this stage; If you don’t believe what I now say, Enter St. George, and clear the way.

(Enter ST. GEORGE)

Here come I, St. George, the valiant man. With naked sword and spear in hand, Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter.

And for this won the king of Egypt’s daughter. What man or mortal will dare to stand

Before me with my sword in hand; I’ll slay him and cut him as small as flies, And send him to Jamaica to make mince pies.

(Enter a TURKISH KNIGHT) Here come I, a Turkish knight, In Turkish Land, I learned to fight, I’ll fight St. George with courage bold. And if his blood’s hot, will make it cold.

(ST. GEORGE)

If thou art a Turkish Knight, draw out thy sword, and let us fight. (A battle follows in which after a grotesque play the Turkish Knight falls and St. George is struck with remorse.)

(ST. GEORGE)

Ladies and Gentlemen, You’ve seen what I’ve done, I’ve cut this Turk down, Like the evening sun; Is there any doctor that can be found. To cure this knight of his deadly wound?

(Enter a doctor with a huge pill box.)

(THE DOCTOR)

Here come I, a doctor, A ten-pound doctor. I’ve a little bottle in my pocket. Called hokum, shokum, Alicampane; I’ll touch his eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. And say; “Rise, dead man,” and he’ll fight again. (After the doctor administers to him the Turkish knight leaps up.)

(ST. GEORGE)

Here am I, St. George, with shining armor bright, I am a famous champion, also a worthy knight; Seven long years in a close cave was kept, And out of that into a prison leaped, From out of that into a rock of stones. There I laid down my grevious bones. Many a giant did I subdue, And ran a fiery dragon through. I fought the man of Tillotree,

And still will gain the victory. First, then, I fought in France, Second, I fought in Spain, Thirdly I came to Temby, To fight the Turk again.

(The fight follows as before, the Turk is vanquished and the doctor revives him. Oliver Cromwell enters.)

(OLIVER CROMWELL)

Here come I, Oliver Cromwell, As you may suppose.

Many nations I have conquered. With my copper nose. I made the French to tremble. And the Spanish for to quake, I fought the jolly Dutchman, And made their hearts to ache.

(Enter BEELZEBUB )

Here come I, Beelzebub

Under my arm I carry a club. Under my chin I carry a pan, Don’t I look a nice young man?

This ends the play, all except the epilogue which to the Mummers is a very important one for Beelzebub, taking his pan and holding it in his hand, says:

Ladies and Grentlemen, Our story is ended, Our money-box is recommended, Five or six shillings will not do us harm, Silver, or copper, or gold if you can.

Then he passes the pan around and if the response is not adequate he uses the weapon in his hand. And singing and reveling in antics and glee they go on to repeat their performance at another place.

This play can be carried on with three people, each person taking two parts. The costumes can be easily adapted from the content of the text; and the more grotesque they are the more successful are the Mummers. The play here given is from the South of Wales but it differs very little from the version used anywhere in England or Scotland. In some of the versions other characters are substituted but the plot remains practically the same.

Familiar as it was in England I think it is not generally known that it

was a feature of Boston life in the early nineteenth century.

The Spirit of Old World Festivals

In Tuscany is a city lifted upon a hill. Over it the bluest sky forms a canopy and the purest light shines over “horizons magnificent and vast open upon the eye.” Legend says that Senio, the son of Remus, when he fled from the wrath of Romulus stopped on the hill where Siena now stands and built himself a castle. Since that time Siena has been a privileged city. At the end of the twelfth century it was a republican government and with the other cities of Italy fought many fights, battling through four centuries with Florence. Siena has had many noted citizens; the bold Alexander III and the meek, courageous St. Catherine among others. Here, all the people are ardent and impetuous, capable of great exultation. They have a lively fancy, they are born artists, and so they love song and dance and athletic competition. Siena reached its height in the thirteenth century, but the great pest reduced her people from one hundred thousand to twenty thousand and Siena never fully recovered. Today she is one of the best examples remaining to us of mediaeval cities, for she is as mediaeval as are her cathedrals and her paintings.

The fervid spirit of the people breaks out however with great feeling at the time of the Palio which is a mediaeval horse race. The word, “palio,” comes from the Latin, pallium, and originally meant the banner for which the race was run, and afterwards came to be associated with the race itself. This race dates from the thirteenth century and is closely connected with the history of the city, religious, social and civic. Now Siena was particularly devoted to the worship of the Virgin, for in times of great need they thought that the Virgin had brought about the miraculous victories; hence they dedicated themselves and. their powers to her that she might watch over them. Naturally, the festivals belonging to her, the Feast of the Visitation on July 2, and the Feast of the Assumption in mid-August assumed particular importance, both patriotic and religious. It speaks much for these elemental feelings that the Palii, the races run to celebrate these feasts, are still held, adhering in many details to their celebration in mediaeval times. Probably in the earliest of these races the sports were rude in character, but in the sixteenth century the Terzi were subdivided into a number of Contrade, or wards, so that the splendor and importance of these public games might be increased. When competition entered in, the pageantry became very much more brilliant and resulted in the modern Palio. But those Palii that were run in honor of the Virgin Mary date from the year 1238 and were

held on August 15, which is the Feast of the Assumption. At first they were run outside the walls. Then, that there might be more thrill, they were brought inside and made to run around a cramped, winding and difficult course. After the fifteenth century the horses sometimes ran alone without riders, having to get over the canvas barriers which were stretched across the streets as best they could, thus adding to the interest of the race.

In 1701 there arose a custom whereby if the victor chose he could offer a cup which should be raced for on the following day, so that the celebration of August 16 became quite as regular as that of August 15 and it has inherited the hoary customs belonging to the original Palio that, unfortunately, about half a century ago was abandoned. However, in this “modern” Palio the customs are ancient and it is really the lineal descendant of the old Palio with features almost unchanged except in heightened color.

As in the old Palio there is a brilliant pageant preceding the race when the companies of the different contestants, wonderful in their mediaeval trappings and livery, with banners and prestige of the old mediaeval pageant, wind through the streets. In it are such figures representing the wards as Lupa, the wolf; Oca, the goose; and others of like allegorical or traditional meaning. In the morning of the third day before the races, many horses of every description, from old nags which have drawn carts to horses which have honored noblemen, disappear one by one inside the gates of the Palazzo Publico. They are going to take their chances before those officials who are to choose the ten horses to run the race for that year. Any horse that has a little spirit may have a chance of being accepted among the ten, for this race is not always to the swift. It is run, as of old, on the most difficult track, and it is a part of the race that the riders should try to defeat the other riders by attacking them with heavy riding whips. It is inevitable that the one who is ahead should get the brunt of this attack. There was one old horse, it is said, who was not swift, but was wise from habit. For many years it had been chosen among the ten and it knew the track and the turns and the corners so well that it ran no danger of slipping. As it grew older, however, it could not win with the extra weight of the rider. So it was secretly arranged with the rider that at the first turn he should fall off, and unburdened, the horse continued its race and came in, as usual, the winner. The owners of these horses do not ride them and the riders must accept the horses that fall to them. This “lottery” is arranged in a curious way. Ten wards of the city only are represented and these are determined by rotation and by lot. The captains, who represent the Contrade both in selecting the horses and in choosing the riders, put the names of the riders in one urn and the numbers of, the horses in another. A number is drawn from the

second urn first and then the name of a rider from the first urn. The choice may bring great disappointment or great joy to the rider according to the horse which he has drawn. Then there are several trial races before the Palio itself. Because this race was run in honor of the Virgin Mary, on the morning of the festival high mass is sung in the cathedral. All day long the peasant folk in their holiday attire come in and the society dames appear before the race in their most brilliant coloring. At two o’clock the horse is taken by its rider and by the members of that ward which is represents (for feeling and rivalry run very high), to the parish church to receive the priestly blessing. This service, in spite of its seeming incongruity to us, is reverent in its simplicity. The priest in his robes stands at the foot of the high altar and receives the horse as it is led forward. The people make the responses to the few short Latin prayers, and then the priest asks a benediction on the horse: “Let this animal receive thy blessing, O Lord, whereby it may be preserved in body and freed from every harm by the intercession of the blessed Anthony; through Christ our Lord, Amen.” The priest then sprinkles holy water on the horse and it is led out ready for the race.

It is a little after six o’clock when the pageant starts. At the head is the representative of the commune, the standard bearer, mounted on his horse, who carries the great black and white banner of the city. Then come the trumpeters in the livery of the Palazzo. Each ward has a captain in dazzling cuirass and helmet, followed by two Alfieri in jolly doublets and hose, who carry the banners. Then come five pages; a drummer, and a fantino on horseback; and a barbaresco who is to lead the horse that has been chosen for the contest, and after all the horses with their attendant splendor have passed, a reproduction of the war-chariot which was taken from Florence in the year 1260 and which is Siena’s most memorable trophy forms the fitting climax to this medieval pomp.

With all this rivalry and with all this brilliance attending It, something of the spirit of the Palio can be imagined; and after the silken banner which is the reward given to the victor has been presented, and after the horse has been taken to the church so that the “ward” might render thanks where thanks are due, Siena remains en fête for the rest of the night.

Guatemala City Fête

In the old Spanish-American Guatemala City there are many churches with numerous monasteries and convents under their eaves. It isn’t strange, therefore, that here, at Easter time, one should find the story of the Passion made vivid and vital to the inhabitants. To one who has seen the Passion

Play at Oberammergau, it might be difficult to trace any connection between one so finished and one so very primitive; and yet out of such as this at Guatemala City did the perfection of the Oberammergau folk play come. If this one has remained but a small beginning and has not developed into the finish of an art, it is of all the more value to us because it makes us realize the “glory of the imperfect” and we understand better the faith of the simple primitive folk; that faith that has been so enduring that it has preserved a religion to us.

In the week before Easter, on the day in which the event first occurred, is a pageant depicting that event. For instance, on the day in which, according to the Holy Scripture, Christ celebrated the Lord’s Supper, through the streets is borne a platform on which is a crude representation of The Last Supper. There is a processional preceding it and following it but this forms the chief event for that day. Around the table are seated Christ and his Disciples. They have not been selected for that honor; they have paid for it. The man who pays the most money gets the most coveted character and so on down. And Judas is not at the foot of the ladder! On another day the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane are the principal pictures and so on through the Passion week.

Many thousand robes are owned by the church for use in these processsions and some of them, particularly those of Pontius Pilate and his attendants, are very gorgeous. In the pageant, too, on a crude shutter is carried a very large papier-mâché sword as a symbol of that sword that cut off the ear of a servant attending the High Priest. And on another shutter is the symbol of the ear itself. So are these features represented in the pageant. So are the swords and the crown of thorns and the purple gowns and the reeds with which they smote Him and the wine mingled with myrrh and the rent Veil of the Temple made real to these people. And they see also the sepulcher and the stone that was rolled away and the linen in which the body was wrapped. And all the Beloved and all the Mistaken are visible to their eyes!

On Easter morning, very, very early in the morning, those in the Passion Play celebrate mass, and then follows the pageant with many thousands of people symbolizing this greatest Passion play in history. Miles and miles do they march, and all the time, in all the churches of the city, there is a strange penetrating noise beating at regular intervals the knell and the sorrow over the death of the Beloved, until it seems fairly to beat its way into the heart. At ten o’clock they have arrived before the doors of the cathedral which is filled with people of all degrees. There is the beggar maid whose only clothing is the scarf around her waist, and there is the woman of high degree with

laces and jewels from every land. Side by side they watch this soul-pageant enter the church. Then, suddenly, there comes a pause. The knell has stopped. After its beating it seems as if the universe has hushed for a moment, until with one mighty frenzy of exaltation the choir and the people burst into the Te Deum while all the bells in the city ring out their tidings of love, and beggar maids and ladies of high degree, and monks and artisans, sink to their knees in a frenzy of faith and hope and love.

All this is attained by methods so crude that without the spirit and the simplicity of the folk, it would be ludicrous. And so near is the religion of these primitive people to their everyday life that it seems to hold nothing of incongruity to them when they spend the rest of the days at feasts and at bullfights!

The Festival Play at Rothenburg on the Tauber

Riding through the wheat fields of Germany made red with poppies and blue with corn-flowers, dose to the frontier of Württemberg, one might think one saw a mirage. Bathed in the light of the sun seems to be a mediaeval city surrounded by massive walls, many turreted! But the mirage would fade into reality when as one goes nearer, the old woman comes out of the tower to collect the few pfennigs that must be paid before one can enter into the outer or inner gates of this red city. If it should happen to be Whitmonday, the traveler would be sure that some elf had turned back the hands of the clock to the seventeenth century for the gates are guarded. Around the churchyard and the towers and inside the gates are picturesque groups of soldiers. On a rise of ground, dressed in scarlet and gold and with barbaric weapons, are groups of Croatians on horseback. Grouped around camp fires are soldiers drinking and singing, playing tricks and games with cards, and going through many a merry step. Near are some curious cannon belonging to the seventeenth century, and stranger than all they look as if they were getting ready to make an attack I Inside, the streets are swarming with soldiers in steel caps and leathern jerkins. These are the Rothenbergers themselves. Occasionally they pass, or mingle with, soldiers in blue and white — Swedish soldiers from the garrison. The atmosphere seems surcharged, for armor-clad horsemen gallop through the narrow and uneven streets. And by the public fountain, no women are washing their clothes, and the market place is filled with guards and soldiers rather than with food and merchandise. From the winding staircase, opening into the middle of the colonnade of the town hall, hasten some of the Guard, and a sentinel paces up and down in front of the “new” court house which was built into

the old court house in 1572. In the council room of the Rathhaus is a picture, “Tilly’s Entrance into Rothenburg.” Seel The soldiers in that picture are those outside the walls! Yes, they are the same, for the date is not the nineteenth century; it is September, 1631. The Thirty Years’ War is in full battle, and outside the walls are Tilly’s vanguard, for Rothenburg has declared itself for Sweden. In this old council hall, where, on the first of May each year the citizens took the oath of fidelity to the Republic, and where the emperors were welcomed, is a table and near it is an anxious citizen. It is Johann Bezold, the Burgomaster. He is talking to some of the senators. He has slept very badly, he says, the siege and the battering which has destroyed a part of the wall has oppressed him. The citizens have been brave even the women and the children have fought, keeping the soldiers supplied with stones and ammunition to use against the enemy who have tried to scale the walls. But Tilly himself with his main army of more than forty thousand men is without. Is it wise to continue resistance? He must consult with his colleagues. In answer to his call, the butler’s daughter, Anna, dressed in an old German bodice with a bewitching cap and a short skirt, comes to answer his command, and a moment after she has left, the bell that summoned in time of emergency, begins to ring. The senators and burgomasters, in peaked hats and long black gowns to which their heavy gold chains lend an added touch of dignity, come in hurriedly and anxiously. As they start to take counsel together, there is a terrific bang. Rickenberg, the captain of the garrison, hurries in to announce that help is approaching. Some recruits with new courage start from the chamber to defend the walls. The Rector, followed by some of the burgomasters, seeks aid in prayer at the church, and when through the open window of the hall, the organ and the choral in the church sounds, the members of the council reverently join in. They are interrupted, however, by messengers from the walls. The walls are being broken, they say, but on the road from Wiirzburg is approaching a large body of troops. It must be Gustavus Adolphus. If they can only hold out the town will be saved. And although the banging continues, it does not shake their courage until suddenly, there is a terrific explosion followed by a terrible cry, with the almost simultaneous announcement from a wounded messenger who staggers into the hall, that the troops approaching on the highway are not Swedish but Imperial! And then, ex-Burgomaster, Georg Nusch, enters to announce, with bowed head, that the white flag is out! Tilly is entering the town.

Amid the cries of the women in the market place, begging Tilly for mercy, the burgomasters get out the keys of the town gates laid on the velvet cushion, and the casket which held their city’s charter, and with

dignified defeat stand ready to greet Tilly. Heralded by his Guard singing an old seventeenth century battle song, “Heil Tilly!” he comes clanking up the steps, followed by the Duke of Lorraine, the Count of Pappenheim, and other generals in gorgeous raiment. He is angry, very angry. He throws down his gloves on the table as if it were a challenge; he turns and snaps at the people who come crying and screaming up the steps hunted by the cruelty of his soldiers, ordering them driven back even at the point of the lance. Then he faces the burgomasters. He demands his indemnity, and with grim humor suggests, nay, demands, that the Council select four of their number to be killed. The burgomasters refuse to be divided. It is mercy for all or for none. So, Tilly sends for the executioner.

It is an inspired thought that comes to Anna who suggests in a whisper to her father that he bring the large goblet filled with the best old wine in the vaults of the Rathhaus as a welcome to the generals. The Butler, being wise, brings in the Cup of the Council, which held many pints, and the subtle wine warming Tilly’s blood, and incidentally, his heart, he thinks of mercy. His mercy, however, takes an astonishing form. If any among the burgomasters will empty this old flagon at one single draught he will save his own life and that of his companions. His mercy is received with scorn. The feat is an impossible one! Then the execution must go on, is the verdict of Tilly. But not so! ex-Burgomaster Nusch steps forward. He is an old man and can but die anyway. He will try. It means the life of his friends! Lifting the flagon to his lips, while in the anxiety of life or death the Council watch him, he drains it to its last drop and demands from Tilly that the life of the burgomasters be spared. The headsman is sent away, and the populace burst into song.

From the Freudengasschen, the street of joy (named so because of the events of this day), they come to form their pageant, the climax of the day. As it was arranged by an artist, this pageant, which consists of about three hundred people clad in the correct costume of the period, is a most beautiful and imposing one. First appear:

Two armored horse-soldiers; four mounted trumpeters; four pages carrying a tablet with an inscription; the city-girls; Rothenburga, Ursula Bezold and Magdalena Hirsching, the Burgomaster’s niece, with her two children, in a decorated car, drawn by four horses; the Senate; the Butler with his cart; the executioner; Young Stand with the “Young troop”; Rickenberg, the Swedish officer, and Scheiblein, master of the arsenal.

2. A herald, a division of armored horse-soldiers; Tilly with his staff; a mounted Dominican friar; musicians in costume; three divisions of footsoldiers; baggage wagon; pioneers with scaling ladders; three guns; caisson;

powder wagon; reserve of horses.

3. Camp followers; five trumpeters; the leader of the Croatians with followers, mounted and on foot; gypsy cart; cart of the canteen woman; ambulance wagon; reserve of horses; baggage horses; servants of the army; cattle for slaughtering; captives; army-surgeon; camp-followers, mounted and on foot.

The pageant stops in the gardens and lawns of the dried-up moat. Here, tents are pitched for the senators and the generals, and under the trees the troops build their fires and hang their kettles. On a knoll, the Burgomaster and his family, served by the Butler, have their feast; and in the afternoon, dancing and singing testify to the joyful delight of this festival. For, although, “Der Meistertrunk,” the festival-play, was first performed in the year 1881, about the time that Rothenburg was resurrected from its obscurity, it has its source in old and abiding patriotism. There had long been exercises in honor of this event and these have reached a greater perfection in this play, where in the same hall, seated in the same chairs and around the same table where the event first took place, the people enact again this famous and dramatic episode in the history of Rothenburg on the Tauber.

These festivals whether primitive or beautiful that have lasted through the centuries, are typical of many others primitive and beautiful that still are enacted in places well-known and places obscure of the Old World. They have endured because they embody the religion, the patriotism, and the joy of the people themselves, and the spirit that permeates them is the world-wide Festival-Spirit.

PART 4 Choice of Subject

There was rebellion in the ranks of a well-known Chicago library staff near the downtown district. Children had always trooped in after material for essays of every description, and the material had been cheerfully sought and given to them even when the knowledge of what they wanted was very vague. Patience had not fallen from her monument. But shortly before Christmas she took a tumble. With a bewildered look in their eyes members of one school had sauntered in and demanded material on “How the Little Assyrians Celebrated Christmas,” “How the Little Babylonians Celebrated Christmas,” and “How the Little Egyptians Celebrated Christmas.” The attendant in charge threw up his hands, “But how can I tell you how little Assyrians and Babylonians and all these others used to celebrate Christmas before there was a Christmas? That’s too much for me.” And with some murmur that sounded very much like “crazy teacher,” he turned away and left the children twirling their thumbs in confusion. When we realize that Christmas is our most generally as well as our most generously celebrated holiday, it is difficult to see what spiritless quirk should have prompted this preparation for it.

Christmas really — but not popularly — is a religious festival, to commemorate the birth of Christ and the spirit of it is probably best expressed in that Gloria in Excelsis, “On earth peace, good will to men.” But at this period of the year there has been a celebration almost since time began. The ancient people, as all childlike people do, symbolized the forces of nature as living persons. In the northern part of Germany and in other northern countries they celebrated a festival in which Winter was represented as an ice giant, headless, and because no food came during his reign he was considered an enemy of man and God. Riding on his powerful steed, the North Wind, he would construct an ice palace and as long as the ice palace remained the people might expect Night and Winter and Darkness and Death. Of course there was a conflict between the giants and gods of Winter with those of Spring. The North Wind would howl and cry and throw itself in all its fury against the South Wind. Then Thor, the mighty god of the thunderstorm, would demolish the castle of the ice giant and out of its ruins,

Freya, the goddess of Spring, would rise to resume her former sway. The mighty giants were not so easily defeated, however, for one of them with sly cunning would steal the hammer from Thor when he was asleep and hastening away would hide it eight leagues under the earth. Then Winter was in no danger from the thunderstorm until Thor, accompanied by the South Wind, would regain his hammer, and with renewed strength would again demolish the castle of Winter.

December became the climax in this conflict of natural forces. For it was in this month that the winter god, having reached the very goal of the winter solstice, now wheeled his chariot drawn by his fiery steeds and started again in an upward course, thus bringing after him Spring, and instead of Darkness and Death, Life and Victory.

The southern nations celebrated this winter solstice in the Saturnalia, the great festival of Saturn. Types of this feast were held all over the ancient world from Italy to Babylon. Sometimes it was called “Feast of Fools,” sometimes “Feast of the Innocents,” or the “Feast of Calends,” or “The Liberties of December.” Indeed, it appeared under many names. After Christianity was introduced, the priests found great difficulty, naturally, in weaning the people from their pagan observances, their festivals. These being vivid, and near at home, meant much more to them than something abstract and far away. Both necessity and wisdom, therefore, demanded that these pagan customs must be engrafted on the Christian tree if Christianity was to live. The “Feast of Fools,” some people think, was invented to wean the people from their heathen observances of the winter solstice, but according to the Doctors of the Sorbonne it was celebrated “that the folly which is natural to, and born with us, might exhale at least once a year.” It was the most curious instance of the mingling of pagan and Christian ceremony; to us, irreverent in the extreme, and yet, it may be, a mere natural reaction occurring in that transition age. This feast was a time of license. After vespers or mass, which was conducted by laymen masquerading as figures of the church and which was carried on in a most grotesque manner, the bishops and priests would throw dice at the foot of the altar, dance through the churches singing religious chants and licentious songs one after another, and the nuns, dressed in men’s clothes, would also join in the dance and the games. With such reversal of dignity was this feast celebrated!

The priests who went to the northern nations were wiser in making the transition from paganism to Christianity. Perhaps you remember the legend of Baldur and the mistletoe. For many nights Baldur had been haunted by dreams indicating that he was soon to die. He told these in fear finally to

his mother, Frigga. She lost no time but went through the earth and exacted a promise from all things, from fire and water, from iron and all metals, from beasts, birds, stones, trees, diseases, everything that crept within the earth, everything that flew in the air, that they would do no harm to her beloved son, Baldur. Then the other gods, knowing Baldur to be invulnerable, used to amuse themselves by throwing at him stones and swords and all manner of things. But there was one little shrub that grew on the eastern side of Valhalla which Frigga thought too young and too feeble to notice. It was mistletoe. Loki, the enemy of Baldur, found this shrub and putting it into the hands of a blind god directed it so that it would dart at Baldur. And the god of spring fell down lifeless, pierced by this shrub of winter. The mistletoe which grew on the oak tree was a sacred plant of the Druids. On the sixth day of the moon nearest to the new year the Druids in solemn procession, headed by the high priest, in white robes, would start out for the annual cutting of the tree. On this occasion there were many sacrifices offered in honor of the mistletoe this mistletoe which, it was believed, kept away all witches and all evils. The tree was a very sacred symbol of these earliest peoples. In Northern mythology the mighty ash tree Ygdrasill was believed to support the whole universe, having its three roots in the dwelling of the gods, in the abode of the giants, and in the regions of darkness and cold. There is a pretty legend concerning our own Christmas tree. St. Boniface, that holy man sent as a missionary into Germany, one wintry night came near to a hillock that was crowned with an oak tree called the “thunderoak,” which was sacred to Thor, the god of thunder. Some pagan ceremonies were taking place it seemed, for there was a fire kindled near the altar at the foot of the hillock and white-clad warriors were in attendance, while arranged in a semicircle children and women with bowed heads were facing the tree. By the side of the high priest was a kneeling child who was doomed to die by the blow of the hammer as a sacrifice to Thor. But the blow of the hammer was turned aside by the cross which Boniface held and the oak itself fell before the blows of the Apostle and the story of Jesus. As St. Boniface told them this story he saw amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak a slender young fir tree standing straight and green with its top pointing toward the sky. Turning to the people he said, “Here is the living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship. See how it points to the sky. Let us call it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry it to the Chieftain’s hall, for this is the birth-night of the White Christ. You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame. You shall keep them at home, with laughter, and song, and rites of love.” To-day, in America, as

one walks down the thoroughfares and byways of large cities on Christmas Eve or Christmas night, he sees shining through the windows of nearly every home the lights of the candles on the Christmas tree. From England and Germany we have inherited this custom, and it is interesting to know that the general use of the Christmas tree as a symbol of this holy and holiday festival was introduced into England from Germany, by Queen Victoria.

In Harper’s Magazine for 1872-73 there is an account of the celebration of Christmas in Bohemia and other German provinces in which some of these pagan rites can be traced. It seems that it was customary for a number of persons to gather themselves into a dramatic company for the purpose of performing Christ plays in which they would show and tell the story of His birth; the persecution by Herod; the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt; and the plot to kill Him. The characters were different according to the localities, but usually the Christ-child, St. Nicholas, or St. Peter, St. Joseph and the Virgin, Herod, the several angels and shepherds were among them. The devil was a very important member of the caste, for in the processions he would caper about and make jokes and in other ways succeed in amusing the populace. Sometimes this play was performed in a hall. Sometimes the characters went from house to house like the Mummers. In their procession they proceeded with the dance movement; they would walk four steps to and fro, singing as they went, and on the fourth time, when the rhyme of the song came in, would turn quickly around. This made the regular conventional procession. It was headed by the best singer carrying a gigantic star and followed by the others pulling a large fir tree decorated with ribbons and apples. When they arrived at the hall where the performance was to take place they formed into a half circle and sang the star song. Then it is significant to note that they saluted the sun, moon, and stars, the Emperor, the Government, and the Mastersinger in the name of all “the herbs and roots that grow in the earth.”

The stage on which the play was given was very bare, and any change of scene had to be indicated by a procession of the company singing an appropriate song. After they had passed those who took part in that scene were left on the stage. The play is perhaps introduced by the song of the angels and the speech of the arch-angel and this is followed by the entrance of the Christ-child who wears a gilded paper crown and carries a basket full of apples and nuts. When he comes in he sings the song beginning, “Down from the high heaven I come”; then he informs the children that his purpose in coming is to learn whether they have been good and obedient and if they “pray and spin diligently.” The reward for diligence is gifts from his golden chariot which stands at the door, the punishment is a belaboring by the

black Ruprecht. Before this is decided, St. Nicholas is called on to furnish a faithful account of the children’s behavior. He seems to be a pessimistic soul, for he usually complains that the children loiter in the street and tear their books and neglect their tasks and more than all forget their prayers. But the Christ-child pleads for them and St. Peter is called. He comes in bringing his keys and acts in a very autocratic manner. He examines their records and bids them kneel and so pronounces sentence upon them, calling upon Ruprecht to carry out his commands. Dressed in fur with blackened face and fiery eyes and a long red tongue which hangs out, this bugbear stumbles over the threshold and as he falls headlong into the room thunders at the children, “Can you pray?” Of course they all fall down on their knees and pray at the top of their voices. And after another song or two has been sung, and after the Christ-child has scattered apples and nuts upon the floor they exit and the play is ended.

This is perhaps a type of the plays that, under the direction of the clergy, were devised as substitutes for the pagan rites.

In England, perhaps, Christmas has been and is most brilliantly celebrated. The English country houses provide such an ideal setting for the Old English Christmas handed down from feudal times. The holiday season was supposed to commence with Christmas Eve and to end on the evening before the “Purification of the Virgin.” There was an ecclesiastical canon to the effect that at this time the Christmas decorations must be removed from the churches. However, Twelfth Night usually terminated the festivities. The Scandinavian ancestors at the feast of Juul, at the winter solstice, were accustomed to kindle huge bonfires in honor of Thor. Here is the original of the Yule log without which an Old English Christmas was incomplete. The members of the household went into the woods to chop down the tree and drew it home in triumph singing a Yule song as they passed. And each wayfarer raised his hat in deference to the good promises which the Yule log held. It was to burn away all enmity, all hate, and to remove by its fire the evil and the sin so that the next year might be one of great rejoicing.

The Lord of Misrule, whose duties were to direct the revels of the season, was the important master of ceremonies of the old Christmas time. His first action was to absolve the company of all their wisdom, leaving them just wise enough to make fools of themselves; assuring them that he had a magic power whereby he could turn all people into children and that they should take care to conduct themselves accordingly. On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day the Mummers would come with their play. And in great contrast to them would come the Christmas carolers. Their singing is supposed to be in memory of the hymn sung by the angels to the shepherds

at Bethlehem. Jeremy Taylor, referring to these angels said, “As soon as these blessed choristers had sung their Christmas carol and taught the church a hymn to put into her offices forever in the anniversary of this festivity, the angels returned into heaven.” If the songs that these village choristers sing have not always the words, “Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth, peace, good will to men,” they have the spirit of the Christmastide. In Cambridgeshire the favorite carol is that ancient one:

“God bless you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay; For remember Christ our Saviour Was born on Christmas Day.”

Another favorite is “When Christ was born of Mary free.” And there are many others still to be found among the English Christmas carols. In Worcestershire the singers ended their song with:

“I wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, Pocket full of money, cellar full of beer, And a good fat pig to last you all the year.”

These carols are sung either on Christmas morning or Christmas Eve by the waifs or children of the village choir who go about from house to house. They are usually rewarded with money or candies or toys.

There is so much material to be found on the Old English Christmas and it is such a picturesque one that it is a very easy subject for a festival and admits of many variations. In one school the older members worked out an Old English Christmas. Their setting was the drawing-room of an English country house and the guests were there for the Christmas holidays. The older people were dressed in the elaborate gowns of the eighteenth century and the children in their quaint attire. The conversation was quite spontaneous, never having been written down in dialogue form, indicating those customs necessary to introduce the games and festivities and to create the illusion of the setting. The children helped by one or two of their elders brought in the Yule log, on which rode the littlest one, singing as heartily as the others in the song. After the log had been placed on the fire different groups played different games. Of course there was Snap-dragon. No Old English Christmas is complete without that game. On a small table was a large dish containing raisins. The master of the house poured out a little brandy in a spoon, held it over a candle until it caught fire and then very carefully spread the blue flame over the whole dish. And one after another began to snatch and to snap, trying to whisk a flaming raisin or more out of

the dish. At the end of the game a handful of salt thrown on to the flickering flame produced a ghastly look to the faces which delighted the children. Just at this time in the distance was heard the faint strains of the carol, and there was a hush while the carolers, singing, “Good King Wenceslaus,” came to the window of the room (in this case they marched through the audience to the foot of the stage). After that they sang two other carols, one “The First Nowell,” and last, “When Christ was born of Mary free,” the words of which are taken from an Harleian manuscript. After their music had died away in the distance, the members of the household joined in the courtly minuet when suddenly they were interrupted by a terrific noise and bellow outside. Every one turned to look and in came the Mummers in their most fantastical and grotesque costumes and the festival ended with their play.

The Christmas festival is as much an American festival as it is that of any other Christian nation, but it seems to be confused in the minds of most people with a maddening rush and tear of giving gifts; and there is so much artificiality in the spirit in which many of these gifts are presented, and so great an attempt to make inelastic purse strings stretch so as to cover an acre of poverty, that the festal spirit has been conspicuously lacking and the salvation of Christmas is due almost entirely to the children.

The usual way of celebrating in the schools by essays and talks on the Christmas spirit, and recitations, and orations is depressing and productive of no real holiday spirit. So the members of a class in one school long addicted to this habit determined to change it. Curiosity in the school grew in proportion to the secrecy maintained by the class preparing the Christmas festival. The sight and sound of wooden shoes as they stumbled around comers after school hours; the excited information that some in the class had been seen in “Dutchtown” talking to the Hollanders as they worked in their celery marshes, served to increase suspense even while it offered a clue.

In the city was a large Dutch settlement with quite the aspect of a miniature Holland. In little houses copied after those that they had left at home these people lived in the marshes where they grew their celery. Through the marshes ran the streams that irrigated their product. Over these were small bridges, and here and there a windmill dotted the landscape. Occasionally, if one rambled through this quaint quarter, he might meet a group just arrived from the old country, wearing their wooden shoes and queer Dutch costumes. They were a peaceable, law-abiding people, these Dutch; some had become Americanized enough to be elected members of the city council and to interest themselves and their neighbors in

the affairs of the city. But, on the whole, they kept pretty well unto themselves; went to their own school, attended their own church, and worked in their own marshes. Their customs, their traditions, were as foreign as their homes. To become acquainted with these people the students went down into “little Holland,” and, going from house to house, saw life from a different angle. Frequently they had to turn away because the people could neither speak nor understand English; but here and there they gathered their information, a game, a dance, or a song. Some went to the Holland school at recess time, and the school children would recall the games they played at Christmas time before they crossed the “Big Water.”

“We have our holiday Christmas on the fifth and sixth of December,” said the little Dutchmen, “because the 25th is the birthday of Christ and it is a holy day; then we go to church, and we hear the story of Christ, and we come back to our houses and have chocolate and little cakes. But on the 5th and 6th we have awfully good times. Saint Nicholas comes, with his black helper, and fills our shoes, after he has taken out the grain which we put there for his reindeer.”

With such bits gathered from this child in the street or in the school, from that old man in the shop, and this old mother over her oven, the students found the material for their Christmas festival. Interest in these “new people” heretofore had never been manifest; but on the 5th of December, when the festival was presented, not a seat was vacant. The first scene was a Dutch home on the night of the “holiday” Christmas. The mother and the father and the children were around the hearthstone, where were the wooden shoes filled with the grain ready for the reindeer. As they talked together about what they had done in other years at Christmas, they conveyed to the audience the customs and traditions of the Dutch people. Then suddenly St. Nicholas arrived, and before he could escape the children caught him and made him play some games with them. After he had slyly slipped away they consoled themselves by playing with their gifts and dancing some of their folk-dances.

As the curtain went up on the second scene the atmosphere had changed; it was no longer gay, it was religious. This was the morning of the 25th, and as the mother told with great simplicity in the language of the Bible the story of the birth of Christ, it was remembered that this was a holy day as well as a holiday.

Here in America we have certain so-called legal holidays days set apart for the celebration in memory of some event, the most important being Christmas, Fourth of July, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving Day. On these days the banks and schools and public

buildings are closed and the day is supposed to be given over to the commemoration of the event for which the holiday is held. But in spite of all this we really have no holiday, for we have not the spirit of the day itself. Of course the spirit cannot be given us by law; it is an inherent thing and must be carefully inculcated so that it may become a part of the fiber of the people. Lately we have awakened to this fact, and as a consequence, Thanksgiving Day has ceased to be the occasion for the greatest football game of the season. Constant efforts for the unfortunately termed “Sane Fourth” have somewhat changed the method of celebration on this day. But for what we have taken away have we given anything truly adequate in return? To filch from a boy a real cannon and give him instead a picture of a real battle is about as “sane” as the Biblical exchange of a stone for bread. The military tournament on Chicago’s Lake Front on July 4, 1910, did more than this; there was a brown tent city of three thousand American soldiers; there was the thrill of a sham battle with all the noise any boy could ask; there were waving colors, galloping horses, smoke and dust, and makebelieve wounded regulars. There was a military and historical pageant with the band in the uniform of 1776; and Washington’s stagecoach; Betsy Ross making a flag; the Independence Bell; Colonial Troops, British Troops, French Troops, Civil War Troops, German Troops; and Bohemian floats. All the different nationalities who wished to enter into this civic demonstration of patriotism were there in glory. There was but one drawback to the boy who watched it. He wanted to be on the mimic battlefield himself. And is there not need for historical holiday festivities in our land of many nationalities? This seems to be answered by a press despatch from New York, dated July 4, 1910, which reads as follows:

“Isidore Solov, a young iron maker, was caught in Houston Street today with a revolver and some cartridges. He was taken before the magistrate.

“‘You say you got the pistol to celebrate the Fourth of July?’ inquired the magistrate.

“‘Sure.’

“‘Why is the Fourth of July celebrated?’

“‘Why — what are you doing — kidding me?’

“‘No, I mean it. Why is the Fourth of July celebrated?’

“‘Why? Because it just is, of course’ [laughing].

“‘No, this is no laughing matter. I am trying to get out of you whether you know why you celebrate the fourth day of this month.’

“‘Oh, I thought you were kidding me. No, I don’t know why.’

“‘You, working in America for three years, and don’t know why you

celebrate the fourth day of July! You ought to be ashamed. I will let you go on condition that you write a composition of five hundred words on “Why the Fourth is the Glorious Fourth!”’”

If the magistrate could have devised any better way to make the ironmaker hate the Fourth of July I do not know of it. However, it seems to have been the time-honored method used to raise up patriotism in the breasts of young Americans. And when they get old and become magistrates the result of it is that they assign a composition of five hundred words on “Why the Fourth is the Glorious Fourth” to foreigners who probably can neither read nor write in order that they may be imbued with American patriotism!

The Fourth of July

The Fourth of July is a holiday for the purpose of celebrating the signing on the fourth of July, 1776, of the Declaration of Independence by the members of the Continental Congress assembled in the State House at Philadelphia. To how many American children, I ask you, is the Fourth of July connected with this event? Most schools are not in session at this time and the town usually oversees the celebration. And inasmuch as it is training the future citizens and future magistrates why should it not take more thought unto itself that this celebration should be one of meaning rather than one of noise? If the village of Rothenburg can give such an impressive play as the “Master Drink,” an episode in the Thirty-Years’ War a festival which brings people from all over the world within its walls is it not a shame we cannot show our patriotism in some such fitting manner?

I am sure that the Fourth of July would be much more vivid to me if I could see that American Congress of 1776, creating that great document that made this country a nation. In the body of Congress would sit Franklin, the two Adamses, Jefferson, and all the other noted people. It was a very dramatic scene; why could it not be vivified to-day? By dramatic license some of the speeches occurring in the events preceding this Congress could be included. I should like to hear Johnson of Maryland nominate George Washington as commander-in-chief of the American army. George Washington has never been very vivid in the minds of most children, I think. To me he always seemed either much like the potentate one sees in the King of Clubs or else like a superhuman prig; but could I see him and hear him accept, in the Continental Congress, the office of commander-in-chief in his sincere and humble speech when he said, “I declare with the utmost sincerity I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with,”

I am sure he would seem more like the Father of my Country.

The scene of the Congress would be a brilliant one with these eminent men in their stately and gorgeous colonial costumes, meeting together to decide whether the united colonies ought to be free and independent states. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia would move these resolutions: “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.

“That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances.

“That a plan of confederation be prepared, and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation.”

Then would be heard the voice of John Adams of Massachusetts ring out to second this resolution. A discussion would follow revealing those States that were in favor of Independence and those that desired delay. The second scene would be that most impressive one, the actual signing itself. First would come the reading of the Declaration of Independence, or a part of it, which was written by Thomas Jefferson. The little incident noted in Jefferson’s journal concerning the discussion in the Congress about the Declaration could be made effective. John Adams was its chief defender and Jefferson did not say a word, but he writes in his journal, “During the debate I was sitting by Dr. Franklin who observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticism of some of its parts; and it was on that occasion, that, by way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thompson, the hatter, and his new sign.” This was a story about a man who was about to open a shop for hats and who decided to have a signboard with a hat painted on it, and the inscription, “John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats.” Now when he discussed this with his acquaintances almost every word met with some objection from somebody who thought it was unnecessary, and at last it was reduced to “John Thompson,” and the figure of a hat.

Dr. Franklin would add a gay note to that very serious scene of the signers grouped around that important document ready to sign it. We would vividly remember John Hancock, whose signature headed the document, by his speech, “We must be unanimous: there must be no pulling different ways: we must all hang together.” “Yes,” would answer Franklin, “we must all hang together or else we shall all hang separately.” Then the little boy who had been placed at the hall door by the old bell ringer to await the signal of the doorkeeper, when that Declaration of Independence came, would run out exclaiming, “Ring, ring, ring!” and we would hear the bell,

that Old Liberty bell, proclaim liberty to all the land.

I can but feel that an observance of this character on the Fourth of July would leave its impress very materially on those who took part and those who witnessed.

Some of the features of the first celebrations also are of interest. John Adams, in a letter to his wife written at the time, says that he believes, “that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.” It was first celebrated July 8, 1776, in the yard of the State House, “where in the presence of a great concourse of people the Declaration of Independence was read by John Nixon. The company declared their approbation by three repeated huzzas. The king’s arms were taken down in the court-room, State House [at the] same time…. After which they went [to] the Commons, where the same was proclaimed at each of the five battalions. Then there were bonfires and ringing of bells and other demonstrations of joy.”

The Declaration of Independence was celebrated in New York in a manner which was more or less directed by Washington. He issued in a General Order for that day the following message:

“Continental Congress, impelled by the dictates of duty, policy and necessity, to dissolve the connection which subsisted between this Country and Great Britain and to declare the United Colonies of America free and independent states. The Several brigades are to be drawn up this evening on their respective Parades at six o’clock when the declaration of Congress, showing the grounds and reasons of this Measure is to be read with an audible voice. The General hopes this important Event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of this Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our Arras: And that he is now in the service of a State possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest Honors of a free Country.”

It has always seemed fitting on this day probably in view of the first celebrations that some military features should be incorporated in the celebration of this national holiday. However, the chief problem both from the standpoint of interest and value in the celebration of these commemorative holidays is that the spirit of the day should be transmitted. Whether this can best be effected by military or by peace features, or by

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both, must be decided by the sentiment of the community which directs the celebration. But the spirit of the day is the thing!

In another letter John Adams describes the celebration by Congress itself of this important decree. The Delaware frigate and continental armed vessels and row-galleys and guard-boats were taken up the river and were decorated with the colors of all nations festooned around the masts and rigging. Then at one o’clock they were manned — the men being stationed in the rigging and top-yards, making, as he said, a very striking appearance of a company of men drawn up in order in the air. John Adams and others of the Congress then went on to the Delaware when there was discharged a salute of thirteen guns, followed by a discharge of thirteen others from every armed vessel. In the afternoon and evening following, there were parades of troops of light horse, artillery, and of a thousand infantry that went through their maneuvers. Music and a general illumination made radiant this first celebration by Congress of its Declaration of Independence.

Richard Henry Lee describes a very amusing celebration in 1788.

“We had a magnificent celebration of the anniversary of Independence yesterday when handsome fireworks were displayed. The Whigs of the city dressed up a woman of the town with the monstrous headdress of the Tory ladies and escorted her through [the streets] with the great concourse of people. Her head was elegantly and expensively dressed, I suppose about three feet high, and proportionate width with a profusion of curls, etc., etc., etc. The figure was droll and occasioned much mirth. It has lessened some heads already. And will probably bring the rest within the bounds of reason, for they are monstrous, indeed.”

While these celebrations are interesting, being the first to commemorate the event, as time goes by the particular and personal animosities or feelings that surround an event shade into the white light of the spirit of the event itself and the celebration should take on a more fitting character.

Washington’s Birthday

It was appropriate, too, that Washington’s birthday should become a national holiday, not only because he is affectionately termed the Father of our Country, being the first commander-in-chief of the army and the first president of the United States; but also because the celebration of the birthday of the king and queen had been a traditional usage of the people who made up these united colonies. Therefore, it was “but natural that the birthday of our first citizen should take its place.

I doubt if it is generally known that the first celebration of his birthday

was by the French troops who were stationed under the command of Count de Rochambeau at Newport in 1781. He wrote to Washington: “Yesterday (Sunday) was the anniversary of your Excellency’s birthday. We have put off celebrating that holiday till today, by reason of the Lord’s day, and we will celebrate it with the sole regret that your Excellency be not a witness of the effusion and gladness of our hearts.”

In 1782 the Virginian Gazette published a record of a celebration of his birthday claiming that it was the first celebration. But we are indebted to the French for the first thought and the expression of it on this day. The first popular celebration of it in New York occurred in 1784, less than three months after the British had departed from our land. Flags and bunting decorated the houses, bells rang, and patriotic salutes were fired at intervals from the Battery. In the evening an entertainment was given on board an East Indian ship, then in the harbor, to a “brilliant and respectable company.” At this entertainment the number thirteen was the favorite number. There were thirteen salutes and thirteen toasts. These have increased in number according to the states added year by year.

When there are so many dramatic incidents in the life of the hero of a country, and in the history of that country, it is distressing to contemplate the “exercises” that to-day in many schools and in many towns are held in memory not only of him but of our country. I remember very well how, as a child I think I was in the third grade the incident of the boys in Boston with Governor Gage impressed me, and has always hung, as a picture, on the walls of my memory. You remember how unpopular the British troops made themselves with the lads who used to play on the Common; beating down the snow hills and otherwise spoiling their fun. The boys, being sturdy little Americans, appealed to the captains in vain. Then, unflinchingly, they appeared before Governor Gage, stating their case and demanding justice. I could see Gage, in his brilliant uniform, as he exclaimed, “What! Have your fathers been teaching you rebellion and sent you here to exhibit it?” And how I liked to read the answer, “Nobody sent us, sir. We have never injured nor insulted your troops; but they have trodden down our snow hills, and broken the ice on our skating grounds. We complained; and they called us ‘young rebels,’ and told us to help ourselves if we could. We told the captains of this; and they laughed at us. Yesterday our works were destroyed the third time; and we will bear it no longer.”

No wonder the Governor, impressed by the justness and fearlessness of these children, exclaimed to one of his officers who stood by, “The very children here draw in a love of liberty with the air they breathe. You may go, my brave boys, and be assured, if my troops trouble you again, they shall

be punished.”

This is such a simple incident, vivid and dramatic, that it could be utilized very easily as a scene for the youngest children and would leave its impress of that love of liberty which permeated the air in America at that time.

And then those scenes that surround the Crossing of the Delaware! Any American town on a river (or without that added illusion to the setting), could be put into as vivid a high light as Rothenburg in her historical play. There would be those pitiful and yet invincible groups of American troops on one side of the river, huddling under their pieces of ragged canvas, shivering, hungry and ragged, and riding among them, a tall figure in a dark coat with cheerful mien, but, one fancies, with questioning sorrow in his heart. Could even he, out of this dwindling army, whose companions were Famine and Frost and Fever could he lead this army into the glory of victory? And on the east side of the river would be the Hessians in brilliant attire, abandoning themselves to their enjoyment. There would be the music of German bands, with the drinking and sometimes drunken choruses of soldiers; there would be the feasts, the dances, and the games. And here and there would be seen groups of Tory citizens with their three-cornered hats, their lace ruffles, their silk stockings and glittering buckles. And ladies, in brocades and jewels with powdered hair piled high, and paint and patches on their cheeks, would ride by in gilded coaches. And now and then one might catch a glimpse of the loyal Americans in homespun and rags and no color on their cheeks but that of faith and no light in their eyes but that of courage. Sentinels would pace up and down and perhaps there might march by a company of British Grenadiers. All in strange contrast to the scene across the river. And then, if possible, might come the crossing of the river itself and the victorious attack of that ragged army on the drunken Hessians might be indicated.

And the Boston Tea Party, what child nay, what American would not like to reenact that! There could be the great meeting in the Old South Church when people came from all around to re- sist, by word and by deed, the unfair taxation of the English. There could be the speeches, setting before the people the situation, and the discussion. How could they prevent the landing of that infamous cargo of tea? As a last resort they would dispatch Rotch to ask the Governor for a pass out of the harbor. Just as the day grows to a close and the rugged and resolute countenances of those New Englanders are lighted by the flicker of a few candles in the church, Rotch, panting from his haste, would burst into the room, make his way up the aisle, and deliver the report: “The Governor has refused the pass.” After

their unanimous vote that the cargo should never be landed, now, what could they do to prevent it? They received the news in sinister silence and Samuel Adams rose to his feet, and throwing up his arms, called out, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.” Then, even then, could be heard the war whoop, shrill, increasing, and suddenly dusky figures, their faces painted with the red and brown of the Indian war-paint, the war-dress on their heads, blankets around their shoulders, and swinging in their hands ominous hatchets, would be seen gathering and running together through the multitude, down toward the wharfs, increasing in numbers as they went, with Adams and Hancock to cheer them. And on the faces of the people would be first, mystification and then joy at the sound of the hatchets as they broke open the boxes, and at the cries of the “Indians” as they threw that tea into the harbor. Here would be a Boston Tea Party indeed!

And then there is the scene, the affecting scene, of Washington’s farewell to his soldiers. In a large public room of the tavern on December 4, 1783, his officers assembled. Suddenly the General entered the room amid silence. Taking a glass of wine in his hand he said: “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable”; then tasting the wine he continued his farewell in these words: “I cannot come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged to you if each will come and take me by the hand.” What sorrow and joy the sorrow of battle and the joy of victory, the sorrow of parting and the joy of friendship were expressed in that touching and Impressive scene while the tears rolled down the faces of these war-begrimed officers as Washington kissed each of his companions-in-arms on the forehead.

These are only a few of the scenes that could be utilized in impressive commemoration of some of the great events in our country. They would serve to make Washington and his troops and the struggle of the colonists more vivid; they would Inculcate more patriotism; they would leave a more lasting Impression in the minds of the people than our present day “exercises,” I believe. Of course their celebration would be affected somewhat by the geographical position of the community, this determining perhaps the stage of the festival, whether indoors or outdoors. Indeed, it would be quite possible for children in the school or for people in a community to make a play such as did the citizens of Rothenburg on some of these events, or they could be embodied in a pageant.

These are but a few, out of many such, that arc symbolic of the spirit of our forefathers and of the foundations on which this country has rested and must continue to rest.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day as a festival has been treated under the head of “Harvest Festival,” but as a suggestion, there might be incorporated in a pageant some of the symbols of those changes that have affected the life of the people since that first Thanksgiving Day in 1623. For instance, among those things that have made for the simple comforts of common life are: sawmills; coal for heating and manufacture; coal gas light; electric light; stoves; cotton goods and muslins and calicoes instead of homespun; mirrors to reflect the vanities of our pretty ancestors; watches; much berated and much beloved tea and coffee; sewing machines; anaesthetics; newspapers; and many other comforts due to the advance of agriculture, scientific and artistic knowledge. As a stimulus of creative ability either in members of a community or members of a school this pageant would afford an opportunity for the development of knowledge and the expression of that knowledge combined with the feeling concerning it. I think, also, that some such pageant embodying the advance of industry could fittingly take the place of the ordinary Labor Day “parade.”

Memorial Day

In 1868 General Logan issued an order and named the thirtieth of May of the same year, “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now He in almost every city, village or hamlet churchyard in the land.” Memorial Day is not a national holiday. There is one day in the North and another day in the South. Because the strife which it marks is of such recent history, because some of the figures who took part in it are still alive, it is a most difficult day for a fitting celebration and is probably best commemorated by strewing flowers on the graves of the loved and lost. However, it seems as if in some simple way, by stories and by music perhaps, the spirit of unity which Memorial Day implies should be made vivid to the children.

In the Atlantic Monthly of 1908, there is a story called, “The Little Faded Flag,” which embodies better than any story that I have seen the resultant spirit of the Civil War. In it a true American is talking to a loyal Frenchman. First ascertaining that he has no immediate objections to graveyards the American drives him through the cemetery in order to point out the little faded flags that adorn the graves of the soldiers, both those of the North and those of the South. In an entertaining way, then, he tells about a

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reunion of the Northern and of the Southern soldiers that took place in that town and of the anecdotes told by the soldiers who gathered on his porch on the eve of Memorial Day and discussed their animosities and their campaigns, one with another. After subtly drawing out the Frenchman in regard to the feeling of the descendants of those who participated in the war of La Vendee in the last part of the eighteenth century; how they still smart under the wrongs inflicted upon them; how not a person in one party would unbend to a member of the other party, after making the Frenchman confess to this, the American tells how arm in arm the old soldiers, some in blue and some in gray, went to the cemetery, and on Memorial Day put the flags on the graves of the soldiers of the North and those of the South, alike.

The Frenchman sees. As he looks at one flag, faded by the exposure to the elements while waving in memory over the mound, he says: “I have seen nothing in America as wonderful as that little faded flag. I understand what it is of which you boast. You conceive that here in your United States exists a kind of fraternity, more genuine than anything anywhere else in the world.” To which the American replies:

“No nation ever produced anything to compare with the spirit in which our differences have resulted. That flag stands for the most wonderful thing in all the world, for the finest thing the world has ever produced yet. Not for talk about brotherhood but for the real thing.”

Community Festivals

The choice of subject for a festival ought to be influenced, too, by the make-up of the community. Almost every community in America has some foreign settlements. Frequently these are sources of annoyance; almost always they involve civic problems. Foreigners do not have our traditions; we ignore theirs. There is established, therefore, a civic deadline and the results of this are frequently tragic. In Twenty Years at Hull House, there is a story of an Italian woman who came to one of the receptions and was overcome by the pleasure she took in some red roses that she saw there. She was surprised that they had been “brought so fresh all the way from Italy,” for she could not believe that they had been grown in America, never having seen any roses here, although in Italy they had been very abundant. In the same book Jane Addams says, “I meditated that perhaps the power to see life as a whole, is more needed in the immigrant quarter of a large city than anywhere else, and that the lack of this power is the most fruitful source of misunderstanding between European immigrants and their

children as it is between them and their American neighbors.” The first generation of immigrants as they come over are much simpler than the second or third generations. They keep their traditions better. They have much that they can give to Americans and it is time that we appreciated and reverenced their past and the expressions of these, our neighbors, for their traditions are their most precious possessions. Therefore, we must abolish some of these civic deadlines; and the more we keep in mind that it is to our value as much and more perhaps than it is to the value of the foreigners, the more effective and the more cultured will we ourselves become.

This is illustrated, I think, in the following story:

If one had turned into Oak Street that afternoon, he would have stopped to rub his eyes. Could this be a corner in a city in Southern Michigan in the United States of America? Surely it was an unwonted scene — these women and children and two or three men in the street, dancing some strange folk-dance to the rhythm of the plaintive gypsy strain they sang, their eyes flashing and their nut-brown skin contrasting with the red handkerchiefs knotted round the necks of the men and the splash of color in the costumes of the women and children. As the picturesque dancers became more exhilarated, they beckoned to a group of students who stood awkwardly at one side.

Clumsily the students joined in. It seemed very strange; they had danced with their feet before, but not with their whole bodies — so. No, they had never danced with the life and spirit of these Hungarian folk. But soon the contagion crept into their veins, and they found themselves swinging their partners and laughing with them as if they had been comrades always.

It was a perplexed group of students who, disillusioned by this experience, started home. “Why — they’re human! I don’t think any of them ever committed a murder!” said one girl. “And they’re not even dirty!” said another, in a somewhat disappointed tone.

When an unsympathetic, nonconforming instructor in a normal school told the students that the work in her class would consist of gathering material for a Hungarian festival to be presented four weeks from that day, they felt puzzled, almost rebellious. She offered them such little help! And when neither dictionary, encyclopaedia, nor librarian could provide any information dealing with “Hungarian festival,” their patience with “such teaching” was at an end.

“Who ever heard of giving out a lesson that you can’t find in a book!”

The next morning the instructor could tell from the ill-hidden

impatience in their eyes and manner that, as a member of the faculty, she had been “found wanting.” She was somewhat petulantly informed that they couldn’t find out anything, that there wasn’t anything to be found.

“Isn’t there a Hungarian quarter in the city?” was her only answer.

Did she expect them to go to a quarter of the city famed because of a recent murder? To talk to foreigners who were nothing but “ruffians” and “thieves” and “murderers”!

“Perhaps you are mistaken,” said the instructor, with a woeful lack of sympathy; “perhaps I am mistaken. But this is research work, and the Hungarian quarter, for the time being, is your laboratory.”

And so it was that, four weeks from the day when Oak Street in the Hungarian quarter had first been the scene of such an upheaval of traditions, there was a gathering in the grove of the school to see a “festival.” It was an Indian-summery day, as if nature, too, had caught something of the spirit of the festa. In the audience were a number of dark-skinned, eagerfaced, vital creatures in holiday attire. “They are the Hungarians who taught the class,” it was whispered; and more than once the spectators turned from the dancers and the games and the folk-tales acted out on the green to these eager, responsive people, brought to this grove for the first time, and bound to this class by a common tie of festal spirit.

This was an experiment demonstrating the fact that public education has some other function than to impart to the students learning gleaned from books. A school is a center. As such it should have an influence radiating into all quarters of the community. The work done along the line of the Hungarian festival not only excited interest in an isolated quarter of the city, and so abolished a civic deadline, but it helped to germinate a festal feeling in the student body, the growth of which feeling is as necessary to the virility of this Nation as are the pageants and processionals essential to the life of a foreign country. There has been no great country without its processionals, its pageants, and its festas.

This experiment proved of such interest and value that another class started out to explore more unfrequented, foreign quarters. There were in the community some Greeks not many, but enough to furnish very animated descriptions of the Olympic Games. There was one story, too, told by a little bootblack who had come from a Greek inland village. He said that Christmas time was no festal time for them; that it was the season for hobgoblins and ghosts and devils who pestered them continually between Christmas and Epiphany. There was no sun at Christmas time. It was cold and the “lame needles” who are dreadful to behold, having sustained themselves on snakes and lizards and bugs and sometimes even on women come

to make trouble, and the priest has to go about from door to door getting rid of them. They are driven away by Epiphany but each year they take a strike at the tree that supports the universe. And sometime it will fall, broken by these “lame needles”!

From a few Italians who kept the fruit stands of the town they gained some added material on the festivals of these Southern people. There was a little group of French in the town and some Swedes, and you may be sure they were all approached. The stories that they heard and the customs that they found, for the most part, could not be gained from books. Using this for material they supplemented it with other written material, and so they worked out some very interesting community and foreign festivals. But the change of front, the widened horizon that they gained in seeking their material from the people themselves, was inestimable. They no longer set these people aside, or ignored them, but through an attempt to understand them, and to place them in their historical backgrounds, they became more powerful themselves and understood themselves better, and more than all got themselves understood the better a task it sometimes takes all of life and of living to accomplish.

PART 5

The Use of Festivals in Connection with Playgrounds and Schools

In Twenty Years at Hull House, Jane Addams tells that many years after the first playground was established she met an Italian who had been one of the most ardent “players” there and he said to her that he had never found a place since then that “seemed so much like Italy.”

An ideal playground is probably like Victor Hugo’s definition of heaven: “A place where parents are always young and children always little.”

“When I die,” said Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland, “I hope the people will make a playground over my body. I would rather have the children romping over my grave than a hundred monuments.”

The playground movement is a comparatively new one and was organized to meet basic human need for play. It is rather startling to read, in Emmett Dunn Angell’s book on play: “A complete history of play would be a history of the human race and would carry us back to the prehistoric.” Of course the need for playgrounds is largely in the city. One of the most pathetic sights is to see children in a crowded tenement district attempting to carry on their play in the street and finally giving it up as they are jostled and run down by hucksters and teamsters. The social result of this has been rather appalling. Children have got to play; not because they must get rid of a surplus of energy, as some people think, but because to play is a fundamental instinct. In it “science has her origin.” In it genius is engendered and in it art develops, and not only art but activities necessary in after life. In the imagination, in the creativeness, in the construction, in the cooperation, in the means by which difficulties are overcome, play touches and feeds and develops fundamental human interests and needs. But more than all this, it is a joy, it is a happiness. And I doubt if, as we journey inland from that sea that brought us hither, we find any more fundamental need than that of joy and happiness.

But viewed more cold-bloodedly, from the standpoint of civic harmony, the playground may be the center to bring parents and children together parents and children of every nationality, so that they may come to know each other. And it may be the center for the celebration of national holidays

and of various recreations, and thus may constitute a civic machinery which achieves a unity out of diversified elements that before had no common meeting ground.

To limit the use of the playground to the children would be a fatal defect. For people working in factories, often on work that is distasteful and automatic, some recreation, and more than that, some self-expression is necessary. When we face the fact that two and a quarter million people attend the five cent theaters every twenty-four hours, we have proof of this hunger and need for recreation. But at the play they have to watch somebody else do something and that other hunger of self-expression is starved until it feeds itself on the sordid, and worse than sordid pleasures that commercialism has provided for these same people. Many of them would not have been destroyed amid these sordid sports if they could have found their help in playgrounds. The influence that the playground is exerting in turning school buildings into recreation centers and public parks into community pleasure centers is one of its greatest values. It is interesting to read in The Playground, July, 1911, a paper on “Tendencies and Developments in the Field of Public Recreation,” by H. S. Braucher, Secretary of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, giving an account of the monument which Mr. F. B. Shedd has offered Lowell, Massachusetts. It is a fifty acre playground. And its plan includes a wading pool, a swimming pool, a shallow pond for small boats in Summer and for skating in Winter, two gymnasium buildings one for men and one for women tennis courts, an athletic field, a playground for small children and an open air theater.

In reading about this theater I was reminded of the story told by Miss Addams of an early Christmas celebration given at Hull House, Chicago, when the Golden Legend by Longfellow was presented. “I remember,” says Miss Addams, “an old blind man, who took the part of a shepherd, said, at the end of the last performance, ‘Kind heart,’ a name by which he always addressed me, ‘it seems to me that I have been waiting all my life to hear some of these things said. I’m glad we had so many performances, for I think I can remember them to the end. It is getting hard for me to listen to reading, but the different voices and all made this very plain.’” Then Miss Addams goes on to say: “Had he not perhaps made a legitimate demand upon the drama, that it shall express for us that which we have not been able to formulate for ourselves, that it shall warm us with a sense of companionship with the experiences of others; does not every genuine drama present our relations to each other and to the world in which we find ourselves in such wise as may fortify us to the end of the journey?”

That is the glory of the playground which has its corners for small and for big dramas. We meet there, not only the people of our own day, and the companions of other races, but the companions of other days and of all lands. Truly it must fortify to the end of the journey.

Before drama, however, came rhythm or dance. It is one of the most beneficent of plays. It is the mother of music, poetry, and drama. It is the natural expression of feeling. What a word cannot express, a motion, a gesture that goes more directly to the heart, frequently can. Probably the dance is the most remembered recreation that the peasant brings with him when he immigrates to this country. Here he loses it. America has in its ranks more foreign nationalities represented than any other nation. They bring with them, as precious possessions, their folk music, their folk games, their folk dances, and yet as a nation we have less of a folk-art than any one of the foreign colonies that settle in our country. Their “precious possessions” soon become relics and like the Italian woman’s red roses, exist only in the memory of their home. Now, the dance is a social inheritance and if by migrating they lose it along with their social life, then we must be prepared for the breaking up of that social fabric, which frequently results in criminality. Into a new social fabric we must weave the woof of their old customs.

As Americans we are apt to use the word, “dance,” in the limited sense of our own awkward and clumsy steps. Savage tribes showed their moods and told their stories in their funeral dances, their war dances, and their various dances representing the story of their everyday existence. A dance, to the Ancient Greeks or Romans, might also mean a processional to the altar where were to be placed their sacrifices. In it, the feelings of the soul were expressed by the body, and it was worship.

To make the dance an expression from within as is natural rather than an ulterior object, is rather difficult it would seem, especially with those, and they are many, who appear to be “tied for life in a bag which no one can undo.” That it is possible was demonstrated by Miss Lucy Gage in her kindergarten class. Although the exercise was primarily for the purpose of giving the students something that they could pass on to the children, it was most beneficial in developing the students themselves. They were divided into groups and were to work out, in the dance, an expression that would stand for a picture or a story that the child would like to express. They were to see it from the child’s mind, and so present it. In this overcivilized and overcultured age, with students in their teens, this was asking them to make a long leap almost into prehistoric times.

They chose Hallowe’en for the subject and the motive. There were four groups and each person in each group was to contribute an idea. In the first

group, they developed a witches’ dance. Arrayed in sheets, and carrying brooms, they indicated in the pantomimic dance the way they rode through the air; then they built a fire and around it had a wild, mad, wicked whirl stopping only to drink from their flagons before mounting their brooms and riding away. The second group were displayed as Jack-o’-lanterns sitting on a fence, nodding and talking to each other. From the fence they tumbled into a very fat pumpkin dance, putting their heads together and looking in at the windows. Another group made a very amusing dance by putting on their things hindside-before and suiting all their movements to their appearance not an easy thing to do! The last group were Brownies who danced in as the clock struck one. As it struck two, they danced in a mad scramble, forming into a circle and playing leap-frog and tag, dancing faster and faster, at each stroke of the clock, until at five o’clock they whisked away.

In working these out, they had to rely on their own music as well as their own pantomime. Many a hitherto inharmonic soul developed into quite a musician. One would sit at the piano and play. “No, that isn’t the right time,” another would say. “See, I want something that will go with this,” and she would throw the feeling that she wished to express into her body. So the time of the music would be changed, and very often the key also to fit the mood of the dance. As each had to cooperate in this way they realized that rhythm is the mother of music.

How deeply the Spaniards love their dancing and how they cling to it is revealed in the old custom in Seville of dancing in the cathedral on certain fête days Christmas, Corpus Christi Day, and Easter, I think. This is called the dance of the Seises and is supposed to be an imitation of the Israelites before the Ark. The custom is very old. They call it dancing, though in reality it is like the old dancing a very graceful and meaningful expression of the soul and body. The music is sacred, and is under the custody of the organist alone. The choir boys carry castanets, and from time to time clap them in measure to the music. They dance before the altar, in the chancel itself, and between the stalls of the clergy who assist in great splendor; for many tapers are lighted; much incense is swung while these choir boys step to the exquisite music of the flutes and violins and organ. They wear a costume much like that of a page plumed hat, and silk knickerbockers, with lace falling over soft colors. A pretty tale is told about these costumes. It seems that at a certain time this self-same dance existed in other cathedrals of Spain but was put under ban. The people of Seville, however, could not give up this religious performance for to them it was religious. So they struggled for it. They sent their choir boys and dancers with fine new costumes to Rome to prove to the Pope that the dance was

not Irreverent, not sacrilegious but reverent and holy. And the Pope found it so but being a pope and a diplomat, he neither consented nor forbade its continuance. Indeed, he said that the dance ought to grace the cathedral until the dancers had to have new costumes. So never have they had to have a new costume! They procure only a bit here and a bit there, a new plume, a new buckle, a new cord or a new frill, from time to time, and the music of the dance can still be heard on certain days in the cathedral at Seville.

If we would cling as fervently to our heritage how rich in creation and art our life might be. This the playground is helping. Neighborhood festivals, too, create a community feeling. In Pasadena, California, two thousand children and adults had a Hallowe’en Frolic. Dressed in masquerade costumes they joined together in their play so making it easier to join together in their work. In many cities various play festivals in which thousands took part and bringing thousands as spectators, demonstrated that cities as well as villages can play.

One of the most difficult problems that the playgrounds and schools and all communities have to meet is the period of adolescence. At this period it has been proved children prefer to present scenes of more elaboration and dignity than they would be able to originate for themselves. So, too, with their games. And here is the chance to make the impression upon them of the great heroes and the great masterpieces. Scenes from Shakespeare they look for. Julius Caesar is an idol. If they have had the good fortune to enjoy means for self-expression before this age, it is not so difficult to direct their acquaintance with the great in life and art.

The legend of St. George is particularly fitting for this time. The favorite version tells us that outside of the gates of Tabiam, a mighty town, was a pool walled about by stone, and in it a lonely dragon dwelt. Each day he devoured some victim, or puffed his poisonous breath, and whoever inhaled it was doomed to death. The King and the Emperor took counsel together as to who should be the next sacrifice to the rapacity of the dragon. Lots were cast and the doom fell to the Princess, the daughter of the King, who wrung his hands for very woe. But the maiden rose and dressed herself in her richest robes; took a little lamb in her arms and left the castle gate. When she stood in front of the cave of the dragon, suddenly she saw St. George riding quickly towards her. His horse was white and his banner was red, so the maiden knew that this was no other than that holy champion. [I quote from a translation published in St. George of Cappadocia in Legend and History by Cornelia Stekette Hulst.]

“Speak noble maiden, speak and say Why here you stand alone. And tell me, noble maiden, why You drop the frequent tear; If robbed you’ve been or foully used, Your grief I fain would hear.”

“I weep that to a loathy worm My parents me must give; Ride, gallant youth, ride hence away. If longer you would live.”

“Fly will not I, nor leave your side In this your hour of grief; I’ve to the holy Virgin vowed To haste to your relief.”

And when the dragon flew at the knight, St. George drove his lance into its neck. The lance splintered into three parts, but as swift as a bird could fly he unsheathed his sword and drew and dealt so many blows, charging the dragon in the name of the Holy Ghost to close its “fetid maw,” that finally the maiden under his direction was able to bind the monster’s head and lead it to the city that the friends and townsmen might see, and so take on the Christian faith. The king in answer says:

“Thy faith we take, myself and realm Of all and each degree: My daughter, her to thee I give, Thine equal she shall be.”

“Nay, though she be of equal rank My troth I dare not plight, I’ve to the Virgin made a vow To live her loyal knight.”

In August, every year, at Furth im Walde, Germany, this story is acted, and probably has been represented in the city since the latter half of the fifteenth century. Now the play is more or less detached from St. George, and the Ritter who is to slay the dragon and save the princess takes his place. The processional is made up of floats showing the knight and his attendants; the castle in which are the weeping family of the princess; crusaders; and scenes in the history of the city. When they arrive at the square, there is a play which follows very closely the story of St. George and the

Dragon. When the Ritter goes forth to meet the dragon, he faces a tremendous monster made of wood and covered with scales. Two men within it make it effective as a dragon. It is killed by the point of the lance and if the Ritter is fortunate, the monster sinks down in a “sea” of blood which pours from its mouth, for a theatrical arrangement makes this possible. And the princess marries the knight.

There have been many orders of St. George and at present there is in England The Royal Society of St. George which was founded for the purpose of reviving his celebration on April 23, his holy day.

This hero and the Knights of the Round Table are very great favorites with children at this very difficult time of their development.

If well directed, some of the old formal dances such as the minuet and the pavonne and others of their character form a good basis on which, at this age, the youth may meet the maiden. There is something formal in them a sort of courtly organization recalling that age of chivalry, and they appeal to the youths and maidens. Anything that gives them a chance to meet together with as little awkwardness and as little self-consciousness as possible on an equal footing will help them over this turnstile in their journey. In the playground a community grows up together, united by the same pastimes, and the transition is made more easily. This is particularly true when the adults have joined with the young in their recreation. For here it is not an infrequent sight to see an old parent revived by the sight of his child in an old-time dance, join in the dance as well as in other recreations.

Then, too, it is true that the people who are more or less undeveloped such as the immigrant portion of our population must get their education and their knowledge in a light way. They must be taught as Francis of Assisi taught the people of his time as the early church taught their peoples in an easy, in an appealing way. This is done through the vision, largely, first, and then through participation. If we can give them something to make easier their drudging work; if we can connect them with the great world around them so that their mind and feeling may be busy with a larger life, we are giving them and ourselves more abundant life. For we must never lose sight of the truth that the reaction of this is upon us and that we are stretching our own horizons to meet the ever-widening boundaries of our own bigger living. There is, of course, no one form of expression that will meet entirely this need, nor can it be met by any one organization. All parts of our life must meet upon this one field. But the school and the playground in stimulating thoughts and efforts for a greater social expression is stimulating a better civil, a better political and a clearer national life.

An announcement at one of the playgrounds that there will be an evening of Folk Songs of Scandinavia brings out numbers of Norse and Swedish people. An announcement that a dramatic club is to be formed will call out many who are eager to simulate life. In fact this is an almost universal desire. People love to see a play, from melodrama to tragedy. One reason is, I believe, that here we get a story complete. We see the growth of this from the time that the seed is planted to the fruits of the full-grown tree. It is not so in the bewildering tangle of life. We cannot always see what will be the fruit of the seeds we plant. If we could but know! And in its unraveling of the knot, the play helps us to get a little clearer vision. So the play has ever been dear as a form of expression.

New Britain, Connecticut, has a problem hardly to be realized even when it is stated. In its population are twenty thousand wage earners from every country of Europe and Asia — from more than forty pure or mixed races. They are employed in the dozen or more factories situated there. Indeed eighty-five per cent, is foreign born or of foreign parentage. Now what about the civic life of that community? How shall these highly romantic people get any of the American spirit?

The town, thinking of this, organized a pageant in honor of Elihu Burritt, the “peace” blacksmith, for to do honor to him all people can unite. And these are only a few of the problems of America that the playground is trying to solve.

Schools

Perhaps the most logical place for the festival to exist as a careful study and as a definite factor is in the school. When parents begin to feel the need of anything in the development of their children they look for it to begin, usually, in the school. I have suggested and illustrated different kinds of festivals and different methods of working them out in the preceding pages. Of course, this subject as far as its American participation is concerned is still in its infancy, and liable to much misunderstanding — and to many mistakes. It calls for pioneer courage and hardiness. I remember very well when it became a great desire of mine to unite the different departments of a Normal school in a great historical pageant. I dreamed about it at night! I thought, for instance, how the Art department could take charge of the costuming and the grouping — working out the historical costumes and the artistic portrayal from the art side of the history of the State. I thought how much the History department would gain from the added stimulus if these students would not only get the history but would also use it. In a certain

sense they would have that miraculous power of making something plastic and alive out of something that usually seemed set and dead. Then, the English department what a chance they had in this! Here was a vehicle ready to their hand which would contain so much interest that it would be no trouble at all to slip in pellets of grammar and rhetoric and dramatic structure without much upsetting the digestion of their patients and so would turn a laboratory into a bower. Oh, I did have unbridled dreams about it! Then there was the stage management that could be undertaken by the Manual Training department; and the costumes could be made in the Domestic Science department. And the Music department would of course be one of the chief factors. Here was a big piece of creative work quite worthy of all our effort, both from the standpoint of the participants and of the spectators.

It offered some difficulties, but I saw them all through rose-colored glasses. In the first place this work had no definite place in the school curriculum. Well, thought I, one could be made. Then the departments in the school were about as unrelated to one another as they could well be and still work in the same center. The festival would fix that, I was sure. Then many, oh, very many in the school, had never had an opportunity to join in any such social self-expression. We did have plays, but the number in these was small and left untouched many of those who most needed just this experience. Here would be a chance for all to be doers a great thing!

So I took my idea to the President. He was noncommittal, offering, however, to put the plan before a committee. Still immersed in the wonderful color of this plan I went to that committee meeting. It was a cold, clammy affair. The History department thought that no time could be spent on “outside” things that they got little enough history as it was without “playing” in it. The English representative was very certain that this was but a frivolous treatment of a serious subject. It would do very well for an outside event it was nice to have a play now and then if the play could be arranged so as not to take any of the time of the pupils that should be spent in serious and profitable work. One or two saw the possibilities of it and thought that “next year” it ought to be taken up. These were from the Training school and had been doing some work along the festival line, so their values were different. I had one or two ardent supporters but they were wiser than I, and saw the uselessness of pushing it at that time. I tried to fight, but the color had faded and when it and I had been sufficiently “sat upon,” I left feeling rather hopeless. My two “backers” gave me encouragement and after I had remained long enough in the depths, I determined to try it anyway. As it was, it was better no doubt. I needed the experience of

a few small festivals before trying anything on such a large scale. In that way the committee builded better than it knew. But the oppressing and the depressing and almost overwhelming effect on me of the conference was that I knew just how they regarded this work; as something “outside,” something of “play” (they used the word as opposed to “serious”), and in fact quite as a useless embroidery. This was not true of all of them, it is only fair to state; it was true, at that time, of the majority. And there was no spirit of cooperation among most of the departments. Well, as I repeated to myself, I was going to do it anyway, so three classes worked out some of the festivals used as illustrations in this book. My courage was not all gone, and I asked that the classes which recited from three to four on the day on which we gave our festival might be excused. Naturally, working with so many pupils (I think there were fifty in the three festivals), reports concerning it had been noised abroad, thus creating a public curiosity, and quite an audience was assembled. Festivals were somewhat nurtured, after that, in the school, and an inglorious defeat leaped into something of a victory, at least.

Now one of the difficulties in this work is that having once established a certain form of festival all those that come after are apt to fall into that same mold. This is unfortunate because there is a place for all types from the simple ones on a bare stage with no effort at costume effects to the very brilliant spectacular pageants. A simple one allows of more active participation by a few, it may be, and therefore its immediate effect on the participants may be more keenly felt. On the other hand, the pageant and festival combined may fulfill some of the functions that I hoped for it in my wonderful dream. And in between these two are so many varieties, some of which I have told about or suggested in the preceding parts, that they can be made to fulfill many interests and activities and can be made a positive factor in building for one’s self, in building for others, or for the world.

That the festival can be made the fruit of work coordinated in different departments, even in the lower grades, is a fact that has been demonstrated. In one third grade, for twelve weeks the children studied the Phoenicians and Vikings as types of early traders. In order to make the people live people and the situations real ones, they studied it from every angle. In the geography class, for instance, they got a vivid setting by looking at pictures and maps and then working them out on the sand table. Studying about the dress and appearance of the people made the industrial life and the conditions that gave rise to trade more real. After they had been studying some time they thought that they would like to make the culmination of their work a “Trading Scene.” In their reading class they read some Viking Tales thus gaining some idea of the choice of words that would lend color to the

scene. In their language class they worked out the “scene.” They tried to imagine the situation. Then they would sometimes act it out, and afterwards write it. And sometimes they would write it and then act it, frequently finding that it wouldn’t work, and so they would have to rewrite it.

They said that they wanted a “sailing song.” So they worked on some good words that would describe the pictures that they might want to put into the song. They, from their study, knew what the general tone of the song ought to be in order to fit the Norse people. But during one whole class period they labored over the verse with little success. Then they were given it as a lesson to take home. The next day the boy who had the liveliest imagination, as the teacher said, and the keenest poetic feeling, came to school with the first verse worked out almost as it is given here. With this as a start the class was able to finish the words.

Then came the music. The music teacher had devoted two or three periods to playing and singing for them some Norse music. One period the children took the words and hummed some tunes until one would find something which fitted the first line. The music instructor then wrote the notes as they had hummed them on the board. They fell naturally into the minor without any suggestion from “outside.”

Every point of historical value brought out in the play had been developed through class study. Asking you to keep in mind that this was a third grade exercise, I give the scene copied from the Kalamazoo Normal Record as a fruit, and a valued one of the festival movement.

A Trading Scene

Scene: King Harald’s palace in Norway. (Soldiers sitting about the room shining their shields and swords.)

FIRST SOLDIER. (Looking at his shield fondly.) You have protected me from many a blow and warded off many bites of the enemies’ sword.

SECOND SOLDIER. You talk as if that were an enchanted shield.

FIRST SOLDIER. Sometimes I think it is because it has guarded me so faithfully. Its first owner, one of the bravest of our kingdom, is now drinking in Valhalla.

SECOND SOLDIER. Who was its first owner?

FIRST SOLDIER. Thorkel, the Mighty. When he received his death blow he gave me this shield and asked me to carry it when I was on the battlefield.

THIRD SOLDIER. (Laying aside his work.) My shield is again ready for battle.

FOURTH SOLDIER. My spear is ready, too.

FIFTH SOLDIER. Where are the other men this morning?

FIRST SOLDIER. They are guarding the ships down in the fiord.

SECOND SOLDIER. Here are some of them now. I wonder if they are bringing any news.

FIRST SAILOR. (Enter men from boat.) Yes, we have news. A strange boat is entering our fiord.

(Men spring to feet dropping shields and spears.)

FIRST SOLDIER. What does it look like?

SECOND SOLDIER. Does it carry friends or foes?

FIRST SAILOR. We do not know. No boat like it has ever sailed in our fiord before.

(Enter HARALD, noise stops. Soldiers look toward the king.)

HARALD. Why all this clatter?

FIRST SAILOR. A strange sail is entering our harbor.

HARALD. Tell me about it.

FIRST SAILOR. Its sails are of beautiful purple. There are three banks of oars and it carries more men than our dragons do.

(Thrall comes running in and bows before the king.)

HARALD. What is it?

THRALL. A messenger is at the door. He comes from the strange boat.

HARALD. Show him in.

(Thrall goes out and returns with messenger.) From whom do you come?

MESSENGER. I come from Prince Hiram of Phoenicia. He lies below in his boat. He sends greeting to King Harald.

HARALD. Tell Prince Hiram I welcome him and his sailors to our court. If he has brought goods to trade ask him to bring them in. (Messenger goes out.) Thralls! (Two thralls come in.) You, make ready a seat for the prince, and you, (turning to the second thrall), bring in the Queen and her ladies. (An extra seat is made ready and the Queen enters with her ladies.) We have guests this morning.

QUEEN. So the thralls tell me. Where are they?

HARALD. Here they are now. (Enter messenger with prince and his men.)

MESSENGER. Prince Hiram.

HARALD. I welcome you, Prince Hiram.

QUEEN. I, too, welcome you.

KING. Have this seat. Why have you entered our fiord?

HIRAM. In far Phoenicia we have often heard of your beautiful amber. The king, my father, wishes to give a gift to my mother. He thinks she will like nothing better than a necklace of this amber. So we have come this

long way to trade for it.

HARALD. What have you to trade for it?

HIRAM. (Turning to servants.) Bring in the chests. (Chest is brought in.) Unlock the chest and show the Queen and her ladies the beautiful silk. (Servant holds up purple silk.) This beautiful purple cloth was woven in Tyre and was dyed with the color taken from the murex, a shell-fish caught in the Mediterranean along the shores of Phoenicia.

QUEEN. We must have some of this beautiful cloth for King Harald’s royal robe.

(Servant takes out of chest striped silk.)

HIRAM. Long caravans of our camels have traveled over desert to Arabia for this silk.

QUEEN. This silk will make aprons for my ladies.

HARALD. Surely your people know how to make beautiful things.

Thrall! (Thrall runs in.) Bring in the chest of amber. This is the most precious necklace we have. I am sorry to see this go away from Norway but seeing you have come this long way for it, I gladly send it to your father, King Abebaal.

HIRAM. We are grateful, King Harald, I am sure it will please my father very much. How much of my silk would you want for it?

HARALD. Let the Queen answer that.

QUEEN. Give us enough of your beautiful purple cloth to make a robe for King Harald and enough of the Arabian silk to make aprons for my ladies, and we will be satisfied.

HIRAM. Certainly, that is a fair trade. Come, my sailors, we must be off.

HARALD. Surely you will not go until you have had a horn of mead with us.

HIRAM. We shall be glad to drink with you.

HARALD. Thralls, (Thralls come in.) Bring in the tubs of mead. (Thralls bring in tub.)

QUEEN. (Turning to ladies.) Will you serve these gentlemen? (Ladies pass mead horns.)

HIRAM. Haven’t you a skald in your court who can sing us a song before we drink?

HARALD. No, we have no skald in court now, but, perhaps we can all sing you a song.

VIKINGS sing: The dragon head, hurrah! It shoots the water clear,

There’s clanging of the shields, And of the shining spears. Thor, the war god, calls us, To battle with our foes. O’er rough and stormy seas. How swift our dragon goes.

Our enemy is met. The victory is won. We spread our rainbow sail, And home again we come.

HIRAM. That’s a good fighting song.

HARALD. Let us all drink to Prince Hiram and his sailors and wish him a safe journey home.

SAILORS. King Harald! (All drink.)

HIRAM. Now, we must say farewell.

VIKINGS. Farewell!

In thinking of the different types of festivals and pageants that could be utilized in a school or a community some of the old Chester Pageants and directions for them may give something of a real practical guide as to the “setting out of pageants.” In the Introduction to the Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, by Joseph Strutt, there is mentioned an ordinance for the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen of the city of Chester providing for a pageant to be produced at the setting of the watch on the eve of the festival of Saint John the Baptist. It was to consist, “According to ancient customs,” of four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, one luce, one camel, one ass, one dragon, six hobbyhorses and sixteen actors. The date of this ordinance was April 26, 1564. The commonwealth, needless to say, did away not only with the pageant, but destroyed the properties. When Charles II came to the throne the festival was resumed as usual and an order issued that “All things were to be made new, by reason the ould modells were all broken.” For the giants the materials demanded were: “hoops of various magnitudes, and other productions of the cooper, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scaleboard papers of various sorts, with buckram, size cloth, and old sheets for their bodies, sleeves and shirts which were to be colored.” Added to all this were “also tinsille, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colors of different kinds with glue and paste in abundance.” And arsenic, it seems, not for the purpose of death, primarily, but rather for that of life, for one paper contains the following entry: “For arsenick, to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten by the rats, one shilling and fourpence.”

Besides making anew the various animals and dragons mentioned above, there had also to be erected a mayor’s mount, the merchant mount, a ship to turn, a castle, Cupid and arrows. And men had to be hired to carry them as well as boys to beat at the dragon.

A still more practical as well as a social suggestion is contained in the statement that in such places as Coventry and Chester and York where these plays were elaborate enough to take several days for their presentation, great care was exercised that the scenes should be divided among those guilds that were best fitted to furnish the properties. Noah’s ark was turned over to the shipwrights; the pageant depicting the creation was given to the plasterers; the goldsmiths took the Adoration of the Magi; the vintners seemed best fitted to watch over the scene where the water turns into wine, and the bakers took charge of The Last Supper!

Chester claims, too, to have been the first city to start the cycle of Corpus Christi plays that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were performed under the direction of the guilds or of the clergy in many cities and villages of England. Probably the most famous of the mysteries is the Coventry play which consists of about forty pageants or acts, taken from the Scripture, beginning with the Creation and ending with the Judgment Day. The play, by the friars began on Corpus Christi Day and so received its name. Many of the original cycles of these plays are in existence and some of them have been edited separately.

As France was the first to celebrate Washington’s birthday, thereby giving a lesson in honor and in patriotism to our countrymen, in the same way we might go to her for some suggestions for festivals embodying that spirit which we left behind in other days, and have not yet formed for ourselves. For as a Frenchman said to me, “In France, we have always fetes, particularly in the smaller places. Usually they are religious or patriotic, sometimes both. Every place has one fete a year, the fête of its patron saint. Sometimes it is very simple. The peasants come in dressed in their newest blouses and fresh white bonnets, and they feast for them in the cafe and they listen to the music. Sometimes there is a spectacle, and all the people join in the procession.”

In Douai, he went on to tell me, is the fete of Sire de Gayon. It is so old that its origin is unknown. According to popular belief, Sire de Gayon was a knight who fought successfully against Louis XI. But the church, alive always to the benefits of these fetes, claims that he was the same as the patron saint. In the procession Sire de Gayon appears as a figure twenty feet high, and Madame, his wife, as eighteen feet high, while the three children range in height from nine feet to eleven and over. So in actual size have

they taken on the heroic proportion that they assume in the minds of the people.

On the fourteenth of April, Avignon celebrates the fete of the little shepherd boy who, according to legend, heard the voice of Christ bidding him to build a bridge across the Rhone. The voice was so insistent, calling again and again, that he interrupted the bishop when he was in the middle of his sermon to convince the people. The bishop ordered him to prison, but to show that he was from God this child of twelve years lifted a block of stone seventeen feet long as if it had been a pebble and carried it to the spot where the voices told him that the bridge was to be built. This so convinced the people that the beautiful bridge used by the popes when the court was in Avignon was built; and the child gained recognition as a saint.

Feuds between the papal court and the French, on the opposite sides of the river, and a great flood in the seventeenth century nearly destroyed the beautiful bridge, but not the memory of the shepherd lad whose fête is held each year.

In The Outlook of 1908, there is an article on the dedication festival of the Normal school in Boston. “This festival,” says the writer, “marks the arrival in America of pageantry in its most serious and lofty aspect.” As might be imagined it was a festival depicting the growth of education. The first part of it was a pageant showing the different groups. After a fanfare of trumpets the handmaiden of Alma Mater led out the groups. The marvelous effects of color were shown in the nine classic figures which were facsimiles of the originals in the panels of Daniel C. French in the Boston Public Library. Knowledge in purple. Poetry in violet, Romance in rose, Truth in blue. Music in white, and Inspiration in Abbey red, can give but a slight suggestion of the color and grace. Then followed Alma Mater in gold and white holding a scepter and a book a facsimile of the figure by French at Columbia University. In all there were twenty groups and after the pageant each group, in an episode, gave its message in some folk-art. The scholars and priests from the East in their gorgeous raiment chanted a Hindu song which was accompanied by an Oriental Dance. Arab scholars with their rich music and expressive dance formed a memorable group, as did also one very much in contrast to this sumptuousness the group of Pestalozzi surrounded by peasant children dancing a simple folk dance. A new phase of education was made clear in the last episode. This was a group representing modern education. The central figure was Happiness and she was surrounded by innumerable children dancing for very joy to the music of the Spring Song.

Truly this joy joy in life and joy in living is the keynote to modern

education. That it vibrates very strongly through the festival is one reason, the greatest reason, for this festival movement. For to give joy is to give life to institutions, to people and to living itself. It is Education.

PART 6 Psychological Effects of the Festival

“Every human work in which there is invention, every voluntary act in which there is freedom, every movement of an organism that manifests spontaneity brings something new to the world. We experience creation ourselves when we act freely. The impetus of life consists in a need of creation.” — Bergson.

A chapter on the psychologic effects of the festival is really but a summary of much that has come before; and the psychologic effects appear so obvious that it seems almost unnecessary to point them out, until one remembers that to the majority of people this festival movement is considered an “outside” and a “frivolous” thing compared with those tremendous studies of History, Education, Science, and Literature and the Fine Arts. The Deerfield Pageant, the Pioneer Festival on the banks of the little Michigan river — did these not prove that as a vehicle for teaching history, for instance, as it ought to be taught, making it a real, dynamic study, the festival fulfills an effective function?

Out of folk-art has grown fine-art. And it is logical, I think, to believe that we cannot well appreciate the finer arts until we have known those more simple, and frequently more appealing folk-arts from which they have grown. And there are some of us to-day who believe that there is no truer art than is contained in this same folk-art; that there is nothing more poignant than the sorrow of the folk melody; nothing more uplifting than the joy of a folk song; that truths of life are seldom more clearly presented than in a folk-tale or a folk-play; and that human emotion never comes to us with so little alloy as in a folk-dance. In these is a recognition of truth, and of basic things, the things of the many rather than of the few. And the great literature and the great art of the world have had their source in these.

The Stratford-on-Avon Festival movement has taken cognizance of this. This movement is an attempt — a successful attempt — to revive the folk-art, “A revival of art which is not separated from life and work; therefore it is clean and virile.” Beginning as near as possible on April 23, the birthday of Shakespeare, the people of this little village, famous the world

over, unite in a festival. Their first tribute is to their master, Shakespeare, and in reverent procession they go to the little church on the banks of the Avon and after a brief service in his honor, heap the grave of Shakespeare with flowers as a fitting tribute of their love for him. As they go out into the streets of the village they form into groups of Morris dancers or groups to play some of the old English sports, as wrestling, quarter-staff, single-stick, fencing, skipping, and many others. They exhibit, too, works of household interest, such as tapestry and lace; or furniture belonging to some special Elizabethan period. Then begins a festival of the works of the master. For three weeks his plays are acted in the Memorial Theater on the banks of that little river that was once his playground. May Day there is a special festival for the children. On the streets appears a dancer with a fiddle in his hand. His playing is a call to the children, and leaving their homes, they flock on to the street to follow the Pied Piper of Stratford to the theater grounds where they join in sports and dancing.

The Stratford-on-Avon Festival is given not only in April, for a great demand for the works of the master and a great sympathy for this whole movement has decreed that the festival shall be repeated in July and August. And to prove that this is not merely a local call, there has been established in Guild Street an office which is a central bureau of information about festivals, pageants, folk songs, and all folk-art. This office is prepared to give information on this subject, and, if desired, to assist in other ways. More than all the office aims to encourage dramatic representation throughout the country, especially in villages by the villagers themselves and in schools by the students, for the purposes of education and recreation. They keep records here of dramatic societies, and of their performances; and collect information as to plays, acting versions, scenery, costumes, dancing, and games. And this, because of the inspiration of the great master, Shakespeare; not only that they may see the best but that through this they may “act freely” and so experience life itself.

What the festival has accomplished with some of the East End children in London can be appreciated in the Children’s Pageant which has been, and is now, I think, acted in the Art Gallery at White Chapel. It is over a quarter of a century ago that this pageant had its first beginning in a bad, impossible concert indecent and vulgar. Now there is an historical festival with gallant songs and dances and episodes showing the growth of liberty and of great deeds; beginning with a scene of Boadicea and her warriors, and ending with a scene of Queen Elizabeth preparing to oppose the Spanish Armada. From four to five hundred boys and girls, working in shifts on alternate nights, take part, and it is not necessary to point out the effect

of this upon the children themselves chiefly, and its reaction upon all London.

Where life has been most arid, the flower is sometimes most brilliant. I remember very well a girl of about seventeen years who entered one of the classes that was working on a festival. Her days in the school were numbered. “Stupid,” “Impossible,” said the teachers, after many unsuccessful trials with her. “No use for her to stay here wasting our time and hers.”

When the class finally decided to take, as its subject for a festival, “The Rise of the White Man and the Simultaneous Fall of the Red Man,” as they stated it, her interest seemed to awake. They were asked to bring in anecdotes about Indians. If any one knew any Indians personally, why, we would gain so much the more. After class, she stopped at my desk and in a nervous, half-frightened way, said that she lived right up among the Indians and knew lots of them. Slowly we persuaded her to tell us some of her own experiences, and as she saw that she had something to contribute which the pupils were actually making use of, she gained more confidence. Never before had she been of any actual worth! And after class when they gathered around her, anxious for what she could give them, she became a different person. We could actually see her grow. And when she was assigned to a position of responsibility in the festival, school took on a different aspect to her, and progress was reported in all of her classes.

In The New Basis of Civilization, Simon N. Patten says that prolongation of childhood has united the family in the same way that war, want, and uncertain income united the larger groups; and that when poverty continues long enough to affect children, maturity is hastened and the unfolding of higher faculties is arrested so that the race reverts to a more primitive type. He goes on to say that it is only the highest types of man who can mold their conduct by abstract thought and pure reflection; that the lower types must watch the instructive, enlightening deed itself, and so deduct right and wrong from more simple processes. That the folk-art can help in this is clear from his definition of morality. “Morality is a complex of simpler qualities so arranged that the social elements in human nature control the unsocial.”

In “Types of School Festivals,” by Frank A. Manny, published in the Elementary School Teacher of 1907, the author says: “Our hope for a deeper enjoyment of the meaning of activities on the part of adults lies in making use of the fact that some value is attached by the adults to this phase for children in the plastic period. If we work out what we can for the children, the grown-ups may find that their own period of growth and consequent enjoyment are longer than they had thought.”

“To the grown person,” says Stevenson, “cold mutton is cold mutton all the world over; not all the mythology ever invented by man will make it better or worse to him. But for the child it is still possible to weave an enchantment over eatables; and if he has but read of a dish in a story-book, it will be heavenly manna to him for a week.

“We grown people can tell ourselves a story, give and take strokes until the bucklers ring, ride far and fast, marry, fall and die; all the while sitting quietly by the fire or lying prone in bed. This is exactly what a child cannot do, or does not do, at least, when he can find anything else. He works all with lay figures and stage properties. When his story comes to the fighting, he must rise, get something by way of a sword and have a set-to with a piece of furniture until he is out of breath. When he comes to ride with the king’s pardon he must bestride a chair, which he will so hurry and belabor, and on which he will so furiously demean himself, that the messenger will arrive, if not bloody with spurring, at least fiery red with haste. If his romance involves an accident upon a cliff, he must clamber in person about the chest of drawers and fall bodily upon the carpet, before his imagination is satisfied. Lead soldiers, dolls, all toys, in short, are in the same category and answer the same end.

“Alas! when we betake ourselves to our intellectual form of play, sitting quietly by the fire or lying prone in bed, we rouse many hot feelings for which we can find no outlet.”

If we could but prolong this pleasure period and do away for a little longer with the “cold mutton” of life how grateful we might be! For the prolongation of youth would mean the prolongation of progress. If you had stepped into the “festival room” one dull wintry day you would have been convinced that the prolongation of well, you might call it infancy, was a definite thing. On the floor in a circle were about twenty grown-ups playing “Monsieur le Duke is dead,” a game that they had learned from some of their Dutch friends. The starter would turn to his neighbor at the left with the startling announcement, “Monsieur le Duke is dead”! And this information would be passed in rapid-fire succession around. Then came that pertinent question, “What did he die of?” When it came to the ear of the starter she volunteered the information, “Of one eye closed,” whereupon she shut her eye as did her neighbor when she in turn conveyed it to the next. The starter added another symptom, “And a stiff neck.” To complicate this was, “A crooked mouth”; and “Shaking hands”; and Monsieur le Duke, “Couldn’t keep still,” until at the last there was a circle of bobbing, grotesque, one-eyed, stiff-necked, crooked-mouth beings who manufactured mirth in the factory of this folk-game. One day they played it for some

children, and to use their own expression, “The children went wild.” About three hundred of them watched with cheers and clapping hands until they, too, began to bob up and down and screw their necks and twist their mouths as if some mischievous elf had waved her wand and put all under the enchantment of mirth. No chapter that attempts to suggest some of the psychologic effects of the festival is complete, I feel, without the story of a little woman in the extension class of the Normal school. As the teachers began their work on the May Day festival one knew from the appeal in her eye how difficult and lonesome was the “new way” for her, and she came to be distinguished as the “caged thrush,” for she seemed rare and very shy. After some time it developed that she taught a district school of about thirty pupils, ranging in age from four years to fifteen. It was the usual little white schoolhouse on the crossroads, and the Board’s chief concern seemed to be one of economy. She had no money to get a book containing May Day songs, and none of the farm bookshelves in her district seemed to hold anything so foreign. As for games and dances, where to get them she could not think. It was a puzzling situation.

“Then, you see what amuses the little tots seems so silly to the big boys,” she said. Some of the others came to her assistance and offered to show her the steps of the May-pole dance. These she practiced in the schoolhouse after the children had gone home. Her problem, so different from the others, was watched with much interest, and upon inquiry she seldom offered any information she said: “Oh, yes, we are getting along, although I don’t quite see how it will turn out. But the big boys promised to get an old pole that used to belong to a wagon of Mr. Smith’s. He said we could take it, and the boys will put it up in the yard for the May-pole. Then, one of the girls in the school said she found some cheesecloth that was used at a social, and we could take it for streamers. But you see, I’m afraid to take the time in school to teach them how to wind the pole or dance the dance, because I’m afraid the Board wouldn’t like it, so I have to do it at recess time. One thing did encourage me. One of the boys, John, suggested that we make Jane she’s the littlest tot the queen, and put her in an old milk cart that John thought his father would loan us, and trim it with flowers, and let some of the boys draw it. I’m rather afraid they might overturn the cart, they’re so mischievous. What do you think?” It was suggested that she try, at least it was all one could do in a laboratory. Then, in her quiet voice, she anxiously added: “But the songs bother me. Do you think we could use the songs we know, ‘Marching Through Georgia’ and ‘John Brown’s Body’?” A copy of some May Day songs was quickly offered her by those who felt that the songs she mentioned, with their somewhat militant

associations, were hardly fitting, and she went away with a clearer light in her eye.

After it was all over, she slipped up to the instructor and said: “I thought you might be interested to know how it all turned out. I was so surprised! The children came dressed in their prettiest clothes, and the people came, too, some from thirty miles! I think it is the first time that they have ever come together; and we had such a good time!” Then, with a little catch in her voice, “Do you know, after it was all over, the fathers and mothers brought out ice-cream and cake for a surprise! And they want another next year.” As she turned away, she added, as an afterthought, “Oh, yes, and the Board raised my salary.”

In looking over the results of the festival, I think they naturally divide themselves into: the effect on the individual participant; the effect on the spectators; and the effect on the community. The illustrations of festivals that have been noted in this and preceding parts, I hope, have demonstrated the value and pointed out the psychology of the festival movement. A repetition might prove wearisome. There are some dangers. In any organized play movement spontaneity is apt to be killed. And this of course is fatal. Keeping in mind the ultimate trend of the movement we must content ourselves with some crude products in order that from such virile stock the health of the festival may be assured.

For the festival, I believe, gives a broader and bigger idea of life.

It helps us to act freely and so to be creators.

It changes the attitude of mind towards our work (perhaps stimulating, in the general student better than any other one thing a research habit).

By bringing us in contact with the past, with the lives of great people, with the movement of events, with the expression of peoples, it gives us a greater appreciation and a larger culture.

By prolonging our period of enjoyment it prolongs our progress.

It is one means for self-expression, for community expression, for national expression, for world expression.

It helps to break down barriers of race and class.

It is a democratic force making for a greater democratic unity.

Truly, then, we may say with Alexander the Great, “One should make a serious study of a pastime.”

References

Mackay, Constance D’Arcy. (1917). The Little Theatre in the United States. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Mackay, Constance D’Arcy. (1915). How to Produce Children’s Plays. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Mackay, Constance D’Arcy. (1915). Costumes and Scenery for Amateurs. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Needham, Mary Master. (1912). Folk Festivals: Their Growth and How to Give Them. New York: B.W. Huebsch.