THE LAST STEP DOWN

The struggle of Henry Jewett to maintain a repertory theatre of serious plays has failed. The public did not give the warm-hearted support that the Copley. Theatre deserved, and now the Trustees of the Jewett Repertory Theatre have voted to withhold further subsidy. A last hope plan of cooperative production was rejected for it gave no more promise than previous arrangements of winning box office support.

Boston sustains a genuine loss. It can no longer boast of a public intelligent enough to oil the financial machinery of an enterprise which immeasurably enriched its dramatic life. The plays of problem and wit which passed behind the footlights of the Copley created an illusion that today, as a hundred years ago, Boston was close to the pulse of cosmopolitan life.

Unfortunately, this illusion is shattered. The patron saints of Boston dramatic culture, apparently, are no longer Ibsen, Galsworthy and Shaw, but George M. Cohen, Irving Berlin, and Florenz Ziegfeld.