SAYS UNIVERSITIES ARE AID TO DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT

"It is in university dramatic circles that the best experimental work is produced," said John Drinkwater, the English playwright and poet, in a recent interview with a CRIMSON representative. "Such organizations as the Oxford University Dramatic Society, and your 47 Workshop here, put on plays which hardly any manager would undertake to promote. Just before I left home they were preparing at Oxford to play 'Ralph Royster Doyster,' and Marlowe's 'Edward the Second.'

"To produce almost any play professionally at the present time is quite expensive, and managers hesitate much before proceeding on any uncertain venture. Moreover, they do not usually know a good play when they see one. At a college there is not nearly so much expense attached, and besides, the organization is reasonably certain of as much audience as it wants.

"From what I've seen in New York, it seems to me that the situation here is much the same as it is in England. There are three classes of producers: First, there are the large commercial interests, who look upon a play solely with its money-making possibilities in view. Next there is the manager who does take an interest in work of real merit, and is willing to give it a trial, foregoing, perhaps, some easier and more certain profit. But they find afterwards that such experiments pay them well, for a play of that sort, if it is good, enjoys a long run, as 'John Ferguson', for example, did in New York. I find that the managers in this country are much readier to take such a chance than are those in England. Much of the demand of the theatre-going public is created, and these men have the power to increase the present demand for good drama to a high degree.

"The third class of producers consists of the very small companies which are engaged only in serious work. These are beset with many difficulties, but do accomplish a great deal. The Birmingham Players, who have a repertory theatre in London, have produced about one hundred and sixty plays in the last ten years."

Mr. Drinkwater thinks that the drama is enjoying a prosperous era at present. "To be sure, there has been quite a setback during the last three or four years on account of the war. But real literary men are now interested in the subject, and the matter they have turned out is of excellent quality. I think that such a list of names as Shaw, Yeats, Galsworthy Dunsany and many others, compares favorably with those of almost any other age."

Mr. Drinkwater's play, "Abraham Lincoln," which has been very successful both in this country and in London, is now playing at the Hollis Street Theatre.