Pollock Denounces Decadence and Immorality of the Modern Drama in Glowing Rhetorical Address Before Drama School

This article was written especially for the Crimson by Randolph Carter 1G.

Whatever one may think of Mr. Channing Pollock as an artist and dramatist, one must admit that he is a very clever speaker. Yesterday, when he addressed members of the Cambridge School of Drama, he succeeded in thoroughly charming his listeners. With one sweep of his sharp eyes, he sized up his audience, judged it skeptical and slightly unsympathetic, so immediately proceeded to disarm all by frankly admitting what some have termed faults, that is, his propensities toward sentimentalism and moralizing.

Mr. Pollock discussed the modern drama in general, slipping easily from anecdote to fact, and from fact to fiction. He went to lengths to denounce the decadence, immorality and sophistication of the theatre. Some of the dramatists who felt the sting of his rhetoric were O'Neill, Phillip Barry, Neel Coward and Pirandello. Shakespeare, being, fortunately, of another age, escaped. Pollock, opposed to "photographic realism," crusades for virtue, idealism, sentimentalism and the "Glory and Romance of everyday life." Certainly he has realized these aims in his plays, particularly "The Fool," "The Enemy" and his latest, "The House Beautiful," which opens next week at the Plymouth and is actually advertised as "the play that leaves a clean taste in your mouth."

Channing Pollock believes, and his success proves, that there is a public for clean, wholesome drama. He thinks we are not really a decadent people, but merely falsely guided.