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THE THEATRICAL SEASON

Once more the doors of long closed theatres open to waiting and expectant sons of Boston and files of goodly souls buy tickets to multifarious musical comedies and plays of the "Pigs" variety. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose! Boston is not a town where the theatre thrives. People here are evidently content with the bromides of the usual Boston musical comedy and the rapid evolutions of legs clad in cheese cloth.

For Boston is a moral city. And art and morality seldom go hand in hand. At least one has to forget the one to effect the other. Of course one must define this morality as a compound of decadent Puritanism, conventional Catholicism, and that esprit de corps which sends so many faithful followers herding into Copley every Monday night.

At all events the pragmatists can stand forth in the glory of his reasoning and complain. There is not a moving, vital, creative play here with the possible exception of the "Jazz Singer", Nor would it pay to bring one. Bostonians prefer the faded glories of second rate editions of the "Follies" to a piece of art, no matter how worthwhile. So the Harvard student can buy a book and read until college opens or play bridge. His theatrical reflexes must be dominated until his next vacation. He is in Boston.

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