Washington Square Plays

								


Produced by Dianne Bean

WASHINGTON SQUARE PLAYS
Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays

     1. The Clod.              By Lewis Beach

     2. Eugenically Speaking.  By Edward Goodman

     3. Overtones.             By Alice Gerstenberg

     4. Helena's Husband.      By Philip Moeller

With An Introduction By Walter Prichard Eaton
Preface By Edward Goodman Director of the Washington Square Players



     Garden City      New York

     Doubleday, Page & Company

     1925



     Copyright, 1916, By

     Doubleday, Page & Company



     The Clod. Copyright, 1914, By Emmet Lewis Beach

     Eugenically Speaking. Copyright, 1914, By Edward Goodman

     Overtones. Copyright, 1913, By Alice Gerstenberg

     Helena's Husband. Copyright, 1915, By Philip Moeller

In its present form these plays are dedicated to the reading public
only, and no performance of them may be given.
Printed In The United States At The Country Life Press, Garden City, N.
Y.

INTRODUCTION
The rigid conventionality of the theatre has been frequently remarked
upon. Why the world should ever fear a radical, indeed, is hard to see,
since he has against him the whole dead weight of society; but least of
all need the radical be dreaded in the theatre. When the average person
pays money for his amusements, he is little inclined to be pleased with
something which doesn't amuse him: and what amuses him, nine times out
of ten, is what has amused him. That is why changes in the theatre are
relatively slow, and customs long prevail, even till it seems they may
corrupt the theatrical world.
For many generations in our playhouse it was the custom to follow the
long play of the evening with an "afterpiece," generally in one act, but
always brief, and almost always gay, if not farcical. Audiences, which
in the early days assembled before seven o'clock, had to be sent home
happy. After the tragedy, the slap-stick or the loud guffaw; after
"Romeo and Juliet," Cibber's "Hob in the Well"; after "King Lear," "The
Irish Widow." (These two illustrations are taken at random from the
programs of the Charleston theatre in 1773.) This custom persisted
until comparatively recent times. The fathers and mothers of the present
generation can remember when William Warren, at the Boston Museum, would
turn of an evening from such a part as his deep-hearted Sir Peter Teazle
to the loud and empty vociferations of a Morton farce. The entertainment
in those days would hardly have been considered complete without the
"afterpiece," or, as time went on, sometimes the "curtain raiser." It is
by no means certain that theatre seats were always cheaper than to-day.
In some cases, certainly, they were relatively quite as high. But it
is certain that you got more for your money. You frequently saw your
favorite actor in two contrasted roles, two contrasted styles of acting
perhaps, and you saw him from early evening till a decently late hour.