Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

THE WELSH OUTLOOK w here there is no vision the people perish. CONTENTS: PAGE PACE PAcE NOTES OF THE MONTH 255 A CHURCH IN THE WELSH THE ISSUE AT GENEVA 274 A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY TRACT, DELAWARE 268 HISTORIES OF THE ROYAL FOR WALES 257 WELSH FUSILIERS 276 THE EXILE'S CORNER THE KNIGHTS OF THE WALES AT WORK-A SOCIAL THE APPRECIATION OF BARE KNEES 270 DIARY 277 ART IN WALES 264 DIARY 277 TRANSFIGURING A MOUN- S'NELLIE'S WELSH FAIRY CORRESPONDENCE 279 TAIN 266 TALES" 272 REVIEWS 280 OCTOBER, 1927. Annual Subscription, 7/6. Half Year, 3/9 (po.t free). NOTES OF THE MONTH HE Report of the Departmental Com- mittee on Welsh in Education and Life contained some very sound wisdom in its treatment of the subject of the Drama in Wales. In particular, the Report lays the proper emphasis on the cultural value and importance of this new movement, hardly yet out of its teens. When it is realised that since 1910 some one hundred and fifty plays have been produced in Wales and that there are now (only twenty or so years since the great religious revival of 1904-5) more than two hundred dramatic societies, most of them attached to the several churches in existence, even official caution and timidity could hardly hesitate in describing the Drama as this most valuable contribution to our national culture." In such circumstances it is not surprising that the Committee should have shown considerable concern at the tem- porary check which the movement seems at the moment to be undergoing. There was a dramatist on the Committee but no actor, and consequently the statement- probably quite true-that the check is not in the plays which are certainly improving but rather in the acting-appears in this unqualified form, having never been chal- lenged ill camera. Nevertheless, the Com- mittee in the body of the Report made some admirable recommendations only one of which, strangely enough, appears in the Summary of their Principal Recom- mendations." And, frankly, this favoured suggestion-that it might be desirable that the University should take the move- ment under its tutelage, at least experi- mentally and for a limited number of years, as part of its extra-mural work "-disturbed us. We know the University, and she is far too staid an old lady to act as foster- mother or even as chancery guardian to such a wilful maiden as the Drama whose chief virtue must always be her abandon. What kind of relations, one wonders, would have developed in a few months between the University Adviser in Dramatic Pro- ductions and, say, Ibsen, Synge or Sean Casey. The Committee, however, made two other suggestions; firstly, that a pro- fessional travelling company should forth- with be organised and financed, and secondly that some kind of central organ- isation which could act as a bureau of information and advice, should be insti- tuted at once. Both recommendations seem to us to be in touch with the realities of the situation, and we feel certain that a real step forward in these matters has been taken recently in the formation of the Welsh Drama League. Chairs of Drama can wait, but the provision of understanding audiences, the discovery and encourage- ment of playwrights, and the cultivation of a sound and informed critical sense are urgent and well within the scope and possi- bilities of an organisation of this kind.