"I am the Three Platoon System. Firemen I represent,
And the clash and clang of the Hook and Ladder Company."
No one could find fault with that, provided that those taking part in
the thing do so of their own free will and understand what they are
doing.
The trouble with the community masque is not so much with the masque
as with the community. For while the masque may be a five star
sporting extra hot from the presses of Percy Mackaye, the community is
the same old community that has been getting together for inter-Sunday
School track-meets and Wig and Footlight Club Amateur Theatricals for
years and years, and the result has always been the same.
Let us say, for instance, that the community of Wimblehurst begins to
feel the lack of a good, rousing war to keep the Ladies' Guild and
the men over thirty-five busy. What could be more natural than to call
in Mr. Mackaye, and say: "What have you got in the way of a nice
masque for a suburban district containing many socially possible
people and others who might do very well in ensemble work?"
Something entitled "The March of Civilization" is selected, because it
calls for Boy Scout uniforms and a Goddess of Liberty costume, all of
which are on hand, together with lots of Red Cross regalia, left over
from the war drives. The plot of the thing concerns the adventures of
the young girl _Civilization_ who leaves her home in the _Neolithic
Period_ accompanied only by her faithful old nurse _Language_ and
_Language's_ little children the _Vowels_ and the _Consonants_. She is
followed all the way from the Neolithic Age to the Present Time by the
evil spirit, _Indigestion_, but, thanks to the helpful offices of the
_Spirits of Capillary Attraction_, and _Indestructibility of Matter_,
she overcomes all obstacles and reaches her goal, _The League of
Nations_, at last.
But during the course of her wanderings, there have been all kinds of
sub-plots which bring the element of suspense into the thing. For
instance, it seems that this person _Indigestion_ has found out
something about _Civilization's_ father which gives him the upper
hand over the girl, and he, together with the two gunmen, _Heat_
and _Humidity_, arrange all kinds of traps for the poor thing to
fall into. But she takes counsel with the kind old lady,
_Self-Determination of Peoples_, and is considerably helped by the low
comedy character, _Obesity_, who always appears at just the right
moment. So in the end, there is a big ensemble, involving Boy Scouts,
representatives of those Allies who happen to be in good standing in
that particular month, seven boys and girls personifying the twelve
months of the year, Red Cross workers, the Mayor's Committee of
Welcome, a selection of Major Prophets, children typifying the ten
different ways of cooking an egg, and the all-pervading _Spirit of the
Post-Office Department_, seated on a daïs in the rear and watching
over the assemblage with kindly eyes and an armful of bricks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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