Announcement of the Return American Tour of the Ben Greet Players: with Ben Greet himself in the cast

              Announcement
of the
Return American Tour
of the
Ben Greet Players
With Ben Greet Himself in the Cast
Under the Personal Direction of

CRAWFORD A. PEFFER
W. VERNON HARRISON
HARRY P. HARRISON


ENGAGEMENTS BOOKED BY
The Redpath Bureau

Knickerbocker Theatre Building New York City

Kimball Building Chicago



THE ANNOUNCEMENT
that Mr. Ben Greet with his company of all-English players will return to the United States for a tour beginning in the Fall of 1929 foretells an important event.

Mr. Greet has been famous in England and the United States for many years for his productions of Shakespearean and classical plays, and the morality play Everyman.  He is considered an authority on Shakespeare and the classical English drama.  His company has been appearing each season in England since he returned to London from America several years ago.

Mr. Greet became well-known in America through his presentation of the morality play Everyman under the management of Charles Frohman.  This was followed later by the production of Shakespearean plays and classical comedies.  Mr. Greet gave a season of over three hundred performances in New York City.  His tours included Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and other large cities, as well as practically all of the leading schools and colleges.  Mr. Greet's company was the first to be invited to appear at the White House grounds.

The tour will begin in New York City about the middle of November.  It is an all-English company, comprised of sixteen players, including Mr. Greet.  The repertoire will include:
Everyman   Hamlet—First Quarto   Several Shakespearean comedies

Everyman is the best known morality play and was frequently produced for a period of about one hundred years; that is, from about 1500 to 1600.  Then it slept for nearly four hundred years or until Mr. Greet revived the play in Oxford and Cambridge Universities in about 1900.  The revival also constituted nearly a year's run in London.

Everyman presents moral truths by the speech and action of allegorical characters, each representing abstract virtues or qualities.  This play while possessing the refinement of classical art exhibits an understanding so comprehensive and sympathetic as to literally leave a spell upon the audience.

Hamlet It was not until 1823 that the existence of the First Quarto was discovered.  Only two copies have been found.  One is in the English Museum and the other is in the possession of Mr. Henry Huntington of California.  The First Quarto was printed in 1603.  It is but half the length of the Second Quarto or the Edition of 1604.  There is none of the actual drama omitted in the First Quarto.  The writing is direct and to the point.  Because of this and the quicker action, it is

BEN GREET
 a much more satisfactory acting version.  More has been written of this superlative play than of any other literary composition of all time, save only the Bible.  Lord Tennyson wrote: Hamlet is the greatest creation in literature that I know of.  The play was written when the author, at thirty-seven or thirty-eight had reached the full zenith of his powers.  The portrayal of the character has been the goal of ambition of every great actor that the English-speaking stage has known.  As far as is known, the First Quarto version has never been acted in America.  Mr. Greet appears in the parts of Polonius and the First Grave Digger.

Twelfth Night This comedy possesses much rollicking humor and is one of the merriest of the Shakespearean comedies.  It was written before Hamlet.  Mr. Greet is well remembered in America for the part of Malvolio, which character he will play on the forthcoming tour.

Much Ado About Nothing is another vivacious comedy in which two pretty love tales are enacted.  Mr. Greet is delightful as Dogberry, the Constable.




A NOTABLE TOUR
IT is intended that the tour of 1929–30 shall be a crowning triumph in Mr. Greet's career.  He holds a distinctive position in the production of Shakespeare's plays.  Absolute reverence for the text and for the prevailing spirit of the story regardless of the principal character has been the keynote of his endeavor.  As a result, he has attained a unique and enviable position.

The great success of Mr. Greet's productions is not only due to his ability to choose capable players and train them to properly delineate the characters, in classical plays, but also to create that atmosphere which is necessary for the full appreciation of good drama.



CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
64 JEFFERSON AVENUE
BROOKLYN, N. Y.

March 9, 1929.

Mr. C. A. Peffer
Knickerbocker Theatre Building
New York City

My dear Mr. Peffer:—

I am glad to learn that the Ben Greet Players will return to the United States.

I cannot too highly estimate the educational and recreative value of the drama as presented by the Ben Greet Players.

Mr. Greet is doing a valuable educational work in presenting Shakespearean and other classical plays in a simple and original way.

Cordially yours,
S. Parkes Cadman President of the Church and Drama Association.




Shakespeare a la Mode and Mood—Continued
Kemble, when he appeared as Hamlet, wore the order of the Garter on his person: more decorative, no doubt, but not a whit more reasonable than if Walter Hampden should ordain to wear a Hylan or a Jimmie Walker campaign button.

We'll give the Hamlet and Horatio à la Brooks Brothers and Kuppenheimer, declare the modern-dress advocates.  With all our varied experiments, we are no different from other ages.  They re-wrote Shakespeare in Restoration days; they pruned him to fit this actor and that.  Edward Sheldon in our day clipped and pasted Richard III to fit snugly the lithe figure of John Barrymore.  This much we may consistently say: There has been no such desecration of the Shakespearean texts as was committed by Tate and Cibber.

But at all times the plays have been altered to suit existing qualms and artistic jealousies.  In the Restoration theatre there flourished a Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending.  In the era of John Kemble, that actor came upon the stage as Macbeth, yet dressed in the scarlet coat of a British general.  There was a tragedian at one time who believed that the sleep walking scene in Macbeth belonged to him—and he took it.  There was another actor who, playing Hamlet for the first time, thought it presumptuous on his part to give advice to the players until he had demonstrated to his own satisfaction that he could act; so he omitted it.  Kemble wouldn't have the materialization of Banquo's ghost; John Barrymore reduced the ghost of Hamlet's father to a mere incandescent Tinker Bell.

So the record is full of such liberties in the name of Liberty:—Edwin Booth's blond Romeo, Charlotte Cushman's Cardinal Wolsey, George Rignold's performance of Romeo and Juliet with a different Juliet for every act.  And the more you meet with these experiments, the more fascinated you become with the results.  At first you shiver slightly at the thought of a Hamlet in dinner coat smoking Camel cigarettes, or Lady Macbeth in a Paquin à la mode costume, or of Katharine and Petruchio sporting about in a flivver.

Personally, I like my Shakespeare neat, not half and half.  Personally, I like actors who can give the poetic content of the lines instead of the modern colloquial tang which disguises the tone of Shakespeare.  The Shakespearean actor is a rara avis, like the nightingale.  It is difficult nowadays to assemble a Shakespearean cast.

There is much to be said for Ben Greet and his English players in Shakespeare in the Elizabethan manner, where we see Viola and Rosalind in ruffs and a background of curtains.  The fact of the matter is that in every age there has been a battle royal waged between our mode and Shakespeare's mood.

The abridged magazine articles on Everyman and Shakespeare a la Mode and Mood by Montrose J. Moses, are used with his special permission.  Mr. Moses is author of a study of Everyman, Henrik Ibsen, the Man and His Plays; contributor to Cambridge History of American Literature, editor, Representative Plays By American Dramatists, formerly on editorial staff Literary Digest, dramatic critic The Independent.



The Rag Doll
By DR. FRANK CRANE

When the novelty has worn off—say a month after Christmas—the poor little rich girl leaves all her fifty dollar dolls with gorgeous hair and blue eyes and concealed phonographic voice—she is tired of them—and you see her taking to bed with her the old rag doll featureless and formless, but, oh, how dear!

Why?

Because the essential of play is imagination, and the rag doll gives the imagination a chance, appeals to it, calls it into constructive, creative action, while the fifty dollar toy leaves nothing for imagination to do.

The boy has more fun playing horse with a stick he straddles than he could have with an imitation, lifelike, painted horse.

I have often wondered why theatrical producers rarely grasp this psychological truth.  To me a spectacular presentment with clouds and castles and trees and flying angels is smotheration.  I have seen Sir Herbert Tree's Shakespearean reproductions and Mansfield's and Irving's and they are like the fifty dollar doll.  I much prefer the idea of the BEN GREET PLAYERS, which is the rag doll theory.

The stage is not to do the work for my imagination.  It is to stimulate, inspire my imagination.

I saw a million dollar film the other night.  The story was incoherent, approximately nil, while feasts, dances, palaces, processions, battles and crowds of populace were scooped on with a shovel.  The result was weariness.

It was a wonderful fifty dollar, talking, eye closing and opening, limb moving, princely arrayed doll.  Once was enough.

But give us the Rag Doll, the real play, where we in the audience can play as well as the actors on the stage.




WM. LYON PHELPS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN

28 February, 1929

Dear Mr. Peffer:—

I have a note from Mr. Greet telling me of his intended visit to America.  I shall be glad to have you use the following statement:

I take great pleasure in recommending most highly the Shakespearean performances of the Ben Greet Players.  I have heard them several times both in open air performances of Shakespeare and in their representation of Everyman.  The educational value of their performances is exceedingly high and appeals most strongly to all students of English literature as well as to the general public.

In their representations the text is treated reverently.  The acting throughout the cast is intelligent and persons who have never seen Shakespeare except as acted in the professionally conventional manner always get a new point of view after hearing Ben Greet performances.

Mr. Greet himself is an admirable actor and a profound student of Shakespeare and the drama.  I think that Shakespeare's plays and the morality play Everyman as he presents them will be a revelation to many spectators.

I hope the tour is a big success.  With all good wishes, believe me

Faithfully yours,
(Signed) Wm. Lyon Phelps

Mr. Crawford A. Peffer
Knickerbocker Theatre Building
Broadway and 38th Street
New York City