The stage of Stuart Walker's Portmanteau Theatre, drawn by Frank Zimmerer. An example of unusual decorative effect obtained by the simplest of means. (From Portmanteau Plays, by courtesy of the Stewart and Kidd Company.)

Auditorium of Butler Davenport's Bramhall Playhouse in New York. A satisfying example of the tendency toward reticence in decoration and simplicity in structure.

EDITOR'S NOTE.-This is the third article on the wartime theatres of Europe written for THEatre Arts MAGAZINE by Huntly Carter, the leading progressive critic in England. One appeared in our August issue and one was lost in transit-a sacrifice to the submarine or the censor. In the letter accompanying the present article Huntly Carter wrote: "I ought to tell you that working in London is exceedingly unpleasant just now. Owing to daily air raids it is impossible to concentrate on serious problems. I welcome an early return to France."

I FIND that there are so many tendencies, theatrical and æsthetic, in Paris, even at wartime, that I could easily fill a fat volume describing them. I do not mean to say that the conventionalized, commercialized, over- and undersized theatres are overflowing with the milk of human genius. They are not. If they overflow at all it is with skim milk. For the most part, they are as dull and as stupid as the commercial wit and ingenuity of man can make them. That is their great ambition, so to speak. And that is why, in the words of a London profiteering manager who has just returned from Paris, "the theatres are all doing excellent business, and he has been able to secure quite a number of plays which are suited to the English taste." Are the plays as bad as that? Perhaps the truth is that nothing can be too bad for the public at wartime, and the theatrical syndicatist knows it.

That most of the theatres in Paris are disposed to offer bad fare, ought not to be allowed to obscure the fact that the National Theatres are, as I said in an earlier article, doing a great deal to keep the best ends up. They are providing a very choice selection of old masterpieces, which, however, they are presenting in a thoroughly immoral manner. Let me say that I use the term immoral in Oscar Wilde's sense, as sheer ugliness. Perhaps it is not altogether correct to say that the acting and speech in the National Theatres are completely ugly. In the days of peace, and while there were more actors to go round, it was possible to witness acting touching the high-water mark of the Comédie Française. But nowadays it is different, and if one desires to witness the extravagantly paid doings of France's prominent professionals-among them Réjane, Guitry, LeBargy, Bernhardt, and Mounet-Sully-one must run round to the picturepalaces, of which, by the way, there are so many in Paris that the boulevards seem to be lined with nothing else. Indeed, picturepalaces are as plentiful in Paris as gin-palaces are in London.

It is only occasionally that speech and action in the National Theatres contrive to disassociate themselves from the rhetorical manner and noise of ancient actors who were brought up on the real old French traditions. But lest anyone should complain that this means the acting is not on an exact level with ugliness, let me hasten to add that the scenery and properties do their best to preserve the level. In the absence of scene-shifters and property-men, who, no doubt, are elsewhere serving their President and country, they dump themselves on the stage in a manner that suggests they regard the theatre business as a sort of wartime frolic. Thus the setting of a play, say a Molière comedy, acquires an individuality of its own for which it is difficult to find an appropriate label. I think that in America it would be called 'post-Belasco.'

Not to be unjust to the National Theatres, I suppose I ought to say that this sad state of affairs is due to the war. Of course the war has much to answer for. On the other hand, it has one or two things to its credit. For one thing, it provoked a big charity matinée at the Opera House which had a novelty worth coming to Paris to see. Imagine the fourth act of Racine's Phèdre decorated in the latest fashion (including a decomposed background) by Léon Bakst. And imagine Ida Rubinstein, the famous dancer, in Sarah Bernhardt's star part, and giving it a motional interpretation never dreamed of in Sarah's emotional histrionics. To persons who have arrived at a conception of drama as an absolute value, this treatment of Racine's masterpiece will offer a very pretty verification of the hypothesis that drama expresses itself first of all and with greatest intensity in dance movement. That is what I found the treatment.

Here, then, were two encouraging tendencies in the commer: cial theatre which I hope to see developed in the uncommercial theatre. The one was the interpretation of a significant character by a dancer. The other was the use of line and color largely evolved by the action. I shall probably be questioned if I say that the only movement to be tolerated on the stage is the dance movement, expressed by gesture, line, color and sound; and the only line, color and sound to be used are those evoked by the movement and absolutely necessary to raise it to the maximum intensity.

Or, I might put it this way: In my opinion acting comes first as an instrument of dramatic expression. Acting should make itself felt by the process of obliteration. That is to say, it should obliterate everything on the stage-actor, scenery, accessories