The " Talkies " .sx by .sx The Rt .sx Hon .sx C. A. McCURDY , K.C. .sx There is no doubt that the " Talkies " have come to stay .sx From the mechanical point of view they are still crude and incomplete .sx At times the human voice is badly distorted , and in the tenderest passages the heroine is liable to emit noises like a foghorn .sx But the public is not worrying about the defects ; they are thoroughly enjoying this new form of dramatic art and there can be no doubt that in a year or two technical difficulties will have been overcome and film producers will have at their disposal a process capable of great results .sx It is rare on the stage , it is rare in legitimate drama , to find a piece which depends for its charm on the voices and the perfect elocution of the players .sx Mrs. Patrick Campbell has created masterpieces which , if the Talkies had been available , would have thrilled the entire world , and new dramatists , new players , will be found who will know how to use this new medium in a way that will astonish the pleasureseeking public .sx But I see no reason why the Talkies should , in the long run , oust the silent film .sx The charm of the silent film is much akin to the pleasure to be got in dreams .sx Out of the darkness the pictures emerge and portray the world , untramelled by all the conditions which cabin and confine our waking lives .sx The beauty of the world , the wealth of the world , are at our disposal .sx If we wish to travel , neither time or space can hinder us .sx The film takes us completely out of our everyday life into a world palpitating with emotion and romance .sx The stage can amuse and entertain us in many ways .sx It may hold up to life the mirror of irony and satire .sx lt may play on the simple chords of sentiment , it may enchant us with music , or dazzle us with spectacular display .sx Different people find pleasure in different ways .sx Some find in music an escape from the existing world of intelligence and action into another sphere where all is emotion undefined .sx The talking film and the silent film belong to entirely different classes of entertainment .sx There will always be room for both .sx Eugene O'Neill .sx The Mystery Man of the American Stage .sx by JOAN BLACKMORE .sx Imagine the man who has made hit after hit on the American stage , whose plays have revolutionised stage technique , whose admirers proclaim him our only modern dramatist and whom nobody knows !sx He turns up in unexpected places he disappears in the moment of his triumph .sx When success finally came to him he fled and hid himself in a desolate old coastguard station in Massachusetts .sx Now an acknowledged master in two continents , he is fighting a desperate fight against consumption in a hospital in Switzerland , after a summer of haphazard roving through Europe , simply disappearing from the ken of his friends , failing even to turn up where he had accepted their invitation .sx But O'Neill is no shirker of life .sx At thirty he had been a clerk , actor , reporter , seaman , and a gold prospector in Honduras .sx A friend came upon him suddenly in a sailors' " dive " in Buenos Aires , where he had been stranded after a voyage .sx Of all his professions , you can see that the sailors' affected his work .sx His plays the " Hairy Ape " especially are imbued with the sights and sounds and smells of nautical life .sx He knows what they are saying in the stokehold , and he is not afraid to tell you .sx I thought I never knew what a string of curses was till I heard what the chief stoker called the engineer in " The Hairy Ape .sx " But he knows , too , of the poetry and the simple goodness of those who toil at the foulest job on earth .sx He can show those old Irishmen in earth's nearest approach to Hell , sighing for the lost beauty of the sailing ship .sx His is a philosophy of gloom but gloom not without beauty .sx Perhaps the long struggle against his own ill-health has done something to tinge his view of life .sx Perhaps the contact with raw , bleeding , cursing life on the boards or in the stokehold has made it impossible for him to write the polite " drawing-room " dramas about healthy people who eat four good meals a day , which we prefer , even from Mr. Shaw .sx But it is not this gloom that rouses the critics' ire .sx They have stood that , and more than that , from Checkov and liked it , without any plot to relieve the dullness .sx They do not mind plain-speaking .sx But O'Neill's followers claim that he has found the modern play the new type of drama that all the dramatists of Europe , or the world , have been looking for for years .sx For such presumptuousness they turn on each new play of his and rend it .sx He has found it without resorting to scenes filled up with stretches of cinema , without the cubist scenery to navigate , with which , one critic said , the actors ought to be roped together .sx He did not have to have four scenes and a loud speaker on the stage together , though one may picture him sympathetic to all these modern experiments .sx But he found his new field of drama in the human mind .sx Not what men do , but what they think , is important to O'Neill .sx What men do has not varied much over the thousands of years that we have been writing it down .sx From the first poets and playwrights have written it down until there is nothing new upon earth .sx But O'Neill's aim is to make a vivid , thorough and psychologically accurate picture of the mind of a human being , and so he invented " The Emperor Jones .sx " Here the mind of one man is revealed in a long monologue , .sx which practically is the play .sx The other parts are merely accessories , while the main part carries the interest and unfolds the picture of the porter turned Emperor , who experiences in his flight from his rebellious subjects all the shades of pride , anger , defiance and sheer , abject fear .sx Strangely enough , these ultramodern efforts have all , or nearly all , been immense financial successes in America , an unusual fate for advanced drama .sx Yet , with the exception of the little Gate theatre , where his play , " Welded , " is at present being shown , no theatre or management has felt inclined to put on O'Neill plays regularly or consistently .sx They put on every crook play that seems to draw them in New York , but not O'Neill , whose " Strange Interlude " is the success and sensation of the year .sx His play , " Welded , " was greeted with savage criticism .sx Though an early work , it is a profounder study of human nature than nine-tenths of the plays in London to-day .sx The fact is that Europe is afraid of O'Neill .sx It does not want the new vision that he offers it .sx This bitter and broken man , shunning publicity and struggling with ill-health that makes it impossible for him even to enjoy the triumph of his own opening night , has made our dramatic minds uneasy .sx For he offers them the most intimate and yet the most strange picture a detailed , scientifically accurate study of the human mind .sx It is rather a terrible picture .sx Even presented by a genius , the son of a fine actor and a master of stagecraft , I do not blame the squeamish who would rather not look at it .sx " Immortal Beauty " and the Talking Screen .sx HENRY AINLEY on the Talkie Future .sx When I met Henry Ainley , back at last from his long convalescence , and busy rehearsing his part in St. John Irvine's new play , I rather expected another scathing denunciation when I asked him the inevitable question , " What do you think about the talkies ?sx " .sx But in the old Haymarket green-room , with its quaintly elaborate furniture which has seen so many theatrical giants come and go , he sketched out a future of the talkies so glorious that I doubt if their most enthusiastic supporter in the States would yet dream of it .sx " The talkies ought to be , " be said , " the instruments of immortal beauty .sx Imagine what it would be like if we could see Kean acting his famous parts and watch the changes he brought about in acting ; if we could see all the classic dramas performed by all the great actors throughout the centuries .sx " With the silent film there was something of this possibility .sx But when the reproduction of the voice is perfected we will be able to have a complete record of the finest acting we can produce .sx But these films ought to be preserved , and not scattered and lost , as many of the really good English films have been .sx " We have magnificent material without looking to America for it , in our own classic drama .sx Imagine what talking films could be made of Shakespeare !sx The film could provide the beautiful scenery that the plays call for more successfully than any stage production .sx If we had casts of English players to speak the lines as they should be spoken , the problem of bringing plays to the people would be solved .sx " Every school or college could have its own theatre .sx In place of a literature lesson a play could be thrown on the screen .sx Then our school-days would probably teach us a love of the classics , instead of inclining us to dislike them .sx " Shakespearian production would probably be limited to England and Germany .sx Shakespeare translates wonderfully well into German , and the German producers are the most artistic in the world .sx " In answer to my question , Mr. Ainley said that he would enjoy making a talkie if his theatrical work left him time for it .sx So much has been said about the menace of the talkie to the actor that it was interesting to find that he took a different point of view .sx " All through the past , " he said , " the actor , alone of all artists , found his work as perishable as himself .sx We can admire the work of a writer or musician hundreds of years after their times ; but the actor , however great he has been in the past , has left only a memory .sx We can try to imagine , but we cannot see , or form a complete idea of the greatness of a Kean or a Siddons , which survives for us only at second hand , in the descriptions of those who saw them .sx With the fully developed talking film his achievements will be on equality with writers or the musicians .sx His finest work will remain for all time .sx If we use this new mechanism rightly , we can leave to the future a unique heritage of beauty .sx " I wonder if our industry will ever be great enough to realise this ideal ?sx Sybil Thorndike by RUSSELL THORNDIKE .sx Mr. Russell Thorndike has written the life of his distinguished sister , and he has given us a biography which has much of the closeness and intimacy of a frank autobiography .sx Our first demand of a biographer is that he should make his " subject " live for his readers , and the second that he should make the subject worthy of the reputation he , or she , has in the outside world .sx " To play Boswell to Sybil Thorndike's Johnson , " the author says in commencing his work , " is a task before which a mere brother might tremble .sx And I do .sx " Since Boswell is easily the first of the world's biographers , his trembling is modest and becoming .sx But he need not tremble now his task is done , for he has exactly done what he set out to do .sx He has made Sybil Thorndike a living person for those who can only know her on the stage .sx He worships his heroine , as well he might , but he gets her heroism across the footlights .sx We understand how her great success has been won by great gifts developed by arduous and untiring work .sx Miss Sybil Thorndike , as he shows us over and over again , is wrapt up in her part and unconscious of , perhaps even indifferent to , her audience .sx She lives for her Lady Macbeth and her Joan , which is the simple explanation of why they live for her audiences .sx