If fools did not rush in where theatrical angels fear to tread, this Preface would never have been written. Two years back the Washington Square Players were called, by many who had theatrical experience, fools. Now some term us pioneers. The future may write us fools again, or something better—the conclusion being that the difference between the fool and the pioneer lies in the outcome; the secret, that the motive power behind both is enthusiasm.
Without enthusiasm the Washington Square Players could never have come into existence, nor survived. From the first, when we had barely enough money for rent and none for the costumes and properties we borrowed and disguised, ours was an enthusiasm strong in quantity as well as quality. The theatre is a peculiar art. Both in production and reception it requires numbers and an enduring faith. Many a similar attempt has failed because its experimentation and expression have been restricted by a single point of view. Many have not continued because the desire has waned in the face of the hardships and sacrifices entailed. But the Players rightly had a plural name. We were, and are, a collection of many individuals—actors, authors, artists, and art-lovers—all fired with the sincere desire to give to playgoers something they had not been able previously to find on the American stage. And our desire has been strong enough to face and fight, and to continue to face and fight, the ever-growing, ever-changing problems of finance, art, and human inter-relations, which are the inescapable factors of the theatre.
We believed in the democracy of the drama. But we understand democracy to mean, not the gratification of the taste of the many to the exclusion of that of the few, but the satisfaction of all tastes. We had no quarrel with the stage as it was, save that there wasn't enough of it. We felt there was a public that wanted something other than it could get—as evidenced by the rise of such institutions as the Drama League—and that that public was large enough to support what it wanted once it learned where to find it. The problem was to bridge the gap of waiting. And it was met by the sacrifices of all those who worked at first for nothing, and then for little more, so that the Players would not fall into debt in the process of reaching an audience. As an able New York dramatic critic stated, the establishment of the Washington Square Players was merely one more proof that in America, as elsewhere, joy was a greater incentive to work than money.
This enthusiasm among the workers, both in quality and quantity, was generously shared by the spectators. The public which looked for plays, acting and producing different from what it could find on the regular stage, proved us right in believing that it was sufficiently large and interested to warrant our experiment. Critics and patrons gave us from the first, and we hope will continue to give us, that personal interest and sympathetic appreciation which have been among the most vital factors contributing to our growth.
So far we have produced thirty-two plays, of one-act and greater length, and of these twenty have been American. The emphasis of our interest has been placed on the American playwright, because we feel that no American theatre can be really successful unless it develops a native drama to present and interpret those emotions, ideas, characters, and conditions with which we, as Americans, are primarily concerned.
Of these twenty American plays the Drama League has selected four for this volume of its series. Excluding comment on my farce—for an author is notoriously unfit to judge his own work—I think it may be said that these represent a fair example of the success the Players have met with in trying to encourage the writing of American plays with "freshness and sincerity of theme and development; skilful delineation of character; non-didactic presentation of an idea; and dramatic and esthetic effectiveness without theatricalism." They are the early products of a new movement in the American theatre of which we are happy to be a part, and if their publication meets with the sympathetic, appreciative reception that has been accorded their production, we feel and hope that not only these authors, not only the Washington Square Players, but all of the workers in this new movement will be encouraged and stimulated to a further effort, a greater mastery, and a bigger achievement.
New York, 1916.
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