" No
one has ever had the audacity to say that of New York.
We have had American drama for one hundred and fifty years,* but
much of it, like our popular fiction and poetry, has been
subliterary, more interesting to the student of social life and
national character than to literary criticism in the narrow sense
of that term. Few of our best known literary men have written for
the stage. The public has preferred melodrama to poetic tragedy,
although perhaps the greatest successes have been scored by plays
which are comedies of manners rather than melodrama, and
character studies of various American types, built up around the
known capabilities of a particular actor. The twentieth century
has witnessed a marked activity in play-writing, in the technical
study of the drama, and in experiment with dramatic production,
particularly with motion pictures and the out-of-doors pageant.
At no time since "The Prince of Parthia" was first acted in
Philadelphia in 1767 has such a large percentage of Americans
been artistically and commercially interested in the drama, but
as to the literary results of the new movement it is too soon to
speak.
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