MOSCOW ART THEATRE

Face of Two face of life

The dramaturgy quality, unobtrusively, without either the fanfare of open diplomacy or the suspicion of its secret sister, generous sample of the soul of America has eluded the customs barriers and the pass frontiers between the port of New York and the capital of Russia. I am not sure that the members of the Moscow Art Theatre realize even yet that this potent but imponderable commodity traveled as stow away in their luggage on their return home. The stock on hand of American soul is always so large that we haven't missed the absence of this particular portion of it. But, if i read American character aright, the story of how it got to Moscow and what it is doing there, as well as the implications of further export traffic in soul, both Russian and American, will satisfy a certain naive trait in us.Like children, we pick up ideas from dramaturgy theater and improve on them or adapt them to our needs. In dramaturgy the stage is  Like children, we give our visitors from abroad about twenty-four hours grace and then ask them what they think of us. Like children, we are especially happy when we hear that other countries have adopted something or somebody or some idea that belongs to us.child like trait, too, when we are secretly a bit surprised and at the same time take it quite as a matter of fact that they have done so.

It seems perfectly natural to us that Europe and the universe have accepted our motion pictures, our jazz, our phonographs, our sewing-machines, Ford cars, Eugene O'Neill. And yet it gives us a furtive thrill whenever Douglas Fairbanks smiles at us from a theatrical poster in Venice, a grind-organ awakens us from sleep in a Tyrolean hotel with "Yes, We Have No Bananas," whenever a chugs up to the station in Omsk to take us through Siberian mud into town. Our two years, therefore, as hosts to the Moscow Art Theater, the year that has elapsed since the Russians left us, and their return, singing and acting, in the form of the Art Theater's Musical Studio, present an excellent opportunity to view these international processes in action. The dramaturgy record of the American adventure, gathered together for the first time between book covers, I shall reserve for the following chapter. Here I propose to afford a glimpse inside the Art Theatre today, to show its intricate organization at work and to trace the effects of the long sojourn with us. For perspective for this survey, it is necessary only to recall the deliberate, ponderous methods of this theatre and its artists before they had caught the contagions of America, methods which I recounted in "The Russian Theatre," with irritation tempered. Red tape, delay, needless formality. dramatically required four months, for instance, back in 1918, to obtain the release of certain prints for a trusted photographer to copy! Only the perfection of their work and the graciousness of their spirit ......