Witter Bynner, grown somber and blase,—the effect of living in soulless New York, he says—has become a sort of Greek Chorus to me. In various strophes with divers variations, in sundry public and private places, he chants the dismal fact that New York is soulless and that there is a danger of it robbing me of my joy in life. Not while its streets remain as they are will I lose the joy I possess! I cannot remember any city that I have been in where my sense of the comic has been tickled so often by happenings in the streets. So many comedies are enacted by the curbstone, so many quaintly funny things happen every hour on the streets, that it would be impossible for me to forget how jolly life really is. Of course I see tragedies too, but they seem to be there only for the purpose of balance! For some time to come I’ll Dalcroze down the avenues and numerical by-ways of this “soulless” city. And my smile will always be handy; and my whistle wet, ready to pipe _Gathering Peascods_ or _The Parson’s Farewell_ or anything merry and bright to dance to. To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.—_Eleonora Duse._ The Theatre “Overtones” Alice Gerstenberg, who dramatized _Alice in Wonderland_, wrote _Overtones_, evidently as an experiment, and had it produced in New York. Now it is crowding vaudeville houses. As an experiment only is it important. Cyril Harcourt intends collaborating with Miss Gerstenberg to produce a three-act play on the same lines: characters being followed by their “real selves”, veiled, with voices confused. A Shaw play might be done this way—it is a method effective for moralizing and bringing home a point. But why would Darling Dora need an overtone or an undertone; or Blanco Posnet or Fanny’s Father? If there is any reason for the dramatic presentation of characters at all it is the drama of themselves—their actions and their thoughts as opposed to those of others.... Imagine Rebecca West being followed through three acts by a “real self”; or Ulric Brendel—“... I am homesick for the mighty nothingness”. “The New Manner” (_Vague Questionings_)